In the span of a year, Wanda Drury saw the bill for flood insurance on her home overlooking the coastal marshes of Glynn County increase an astounding tenfold from $674 a year to more than $6,700.

It was enough money that the retired widow applied for a bank loan to cover the bill for insuring her 1,400-square-foot Cape Cod style house on Blythe Island just west of Brunswick. Although President Barack Obama recently signed a law to roll back some rate increases meant to shore up the troubled National Flood Insurance Program, thousands of Georgia homeowners like Drury can count on paying increasing flood insurance premiums each year--though perhaps less than they originally feared.

Drury, a retired phone company customer service rep, lived in her home without flood insurance for nearly a decade until her husband died four years ago and she took out a home-equity loan to help pay for expenses. The bank required her to buy flood insurance, but she says she let the policy lapse a little more than a year ago to make room for other bills. Drury signed up for a new flood policy this year, and the sticker shock still stings.

“I like to have died,'' Drury said. “I said, `Where do they think I'm going to come up with $6,700? It's all I can do to keep on living.' "

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