Greg,
In one of the towns I inspect, the town gave people permission to raise their houses as long as it was the height that was governed by FEMA. The heights were different in several parts of town. Needless to say, the closer you were to the river, the higher the flood plane was. They will even allow you to build a new house in the flood plane, but there is no basement and no walls on the first floor. The water has to be allowed to flow in, under, and around the house. So all of your utility services enter in on the 2nd floor.
The water and sewer comes up out of the ground and is wrapped around with all sorts of protection from cold, inside of a hollow column.
