During the early 1970s, the Flood Plain Management Services (FPMS) Program, under its Guides, Pamphlets, and Supporting Studies element, was pursuing several flood proofing initiatives. Larry Flanagan, Chief FPMS in LMVD, was involved in residential flood proofing systems and in testing flood proofing materials at the Waterways Experiment Station (WES); Sam Cowan, Chief FPMS at SAD, was involved in developing a flood proofing primer and in documenting the elevating of a residence located along Peachtree Creek in Atlanta, GA; Herm Lardieri, Chief FPMS in Pittsburgh District, was involved in developing standards of flood proofing in buildings and related codes and in drafting EP 1165-2-314 Flood-Proofing Regulations; and Bob Hall, Chief FPMS in Los Angeles District, was seeking flood proofing techniques that would prevent sheet-flow flooding of structures in California. As flood proofing activities continued to increase, it became evident that some means of coordination was needed.
An ad hoc Committee on Residential Flood Proofing was formed in May 1978. It was chaired by Larry Flanagan with Sam Cowan, Herm Lardieri, and Bob Hall as members and Bob Plott as OCE Coordinator. It was dedicated to residential flood proofing and its activities were loosely coordinated. Much of its work and its accomplishments involved completing the work initiated by its individual members and avoiding overlap. The Committee also helped staff at districts with nonstructural assessments, guidance on applying nonstructural approaches and, in some cases, implementation on smaller scale projects under USACE’s Continuing Authorities Program. The ad hoc committee met twice, once in 1978 and once in 1979. In 1980, Bob Hall left the FPMS Program and the committee. In 1984, Larry Flanagan left the committee and Dr. Carl Pace was brought on board as a technical advisor for the work he and Larry were doing on testing flood proofing materials at WES. The committee's last effort was to acquire the materials that were used by headquarters to publish Flood Proofing Systems & Techniques - Examples of flood proofed structures in the United States.
It became evident that a means of coordinating and providing direction to future flood proofing activities under the FPMS Program was necessary. Hence, charter members were appointed on 20 September 1985, and on 8-9 October 1985 the initial meeting of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Flood Proofing Committee (NFPC) was held at SAD to finalize a Committee charter and to elect Committee officers.
The NFPC charter was ratified at headquarters by the Chief, Flood Plain Management Services and Coastal Resources Branch and signed by the Chief, Planning Division, Directorate of Civil Works, Office of the Chief of Engineers on 12 December 1985. It was subsequently revised in 1990, 1994, 2006 and 2010, primarily to increase the number of its members from the initial five to seven and then to nine. The charter was revised significantly in 2017 and the committee was renamed the National Nonstructural Committee (NNC). The NNC currently consists of six members with diverse backgrounds in planning, engineering and economics.