Flood
There are two flood maps, and they disagree
Every building page on this site shows two flood zones rather than one. This is why.
The map in force is from 2006
The flood map that legally applies to downtown Jersey City was drawn in 2006. It is the one a lender and an insurer use. It puts a single large high-risk zone across much of the low ground downtown, and no wave-risk zone anywhere.
The newer map has not been adopted
FEMA drafted a replacement in 2015. It has not been adopted and carries no legal force. It is also the more recent read of the risk, and it is less comfortable: it extends the high-risk zone further, and it adds wave-risk zones along the waterfront that the 2006 map does not have at all.
Neither map can simply be ignored. The old one is what counts today. The new one is what FEMA's own surveyors concluded eleven years ago.
What that looks like across 233 buildings
These counts are read at each building's own location, not across its whole lot. A large site can have one corner in a flood zone and the building itself on dry ground, and counting the lot would make downtown look far wetter than it is.
| The map in force (2006) | The draft map (2015) | |
|---|---|---|
| In a high-risk zone | 134 | 186 |
| Of those, with wave risk | 0 | 2 |
| Outside the high-risk zone | 103 | 51 |
54 buildings are outside the high-risk zone on the map in force and inside it on the draft map. Those are the addresses where the two maps tell you different things, and they are the ones worth asking about.
What the zone letters mean
| Zone | What it means |
|---|---|
| AE | High risk. FEMA expects this ground to flood in a big storm, roughly a 1-in-100 chance in any year. A lender will normally require flood insurance. The map also gives the height water is expected to reach. |
| VE | The same chance, plus damaging waves on top of the water. Along the waterfront. |
| X, 0.2% annual chance | Lower risk. Outside the high-risk zone but still mapped: roughly a 1-in-500 chance in any year. |
| X, minimal | Outside the mapped high-risk area. |
Why we do not rank buildings by flood risk
We were going to. We stopped, for three reasons.
- Two maps that disagree cannot produce one ranking. Order the buildings by the 2006 map and you get a different list than by the 2015 draft. Publishing either as "the" ranking would be a choice dressed up as a fact.
- A flood zone describes the ground, not the building. It says nothing about how a building was built, how high the lobby sits, where the lift machinery and the electrical switchgear are, or whether the parking garage floods. Two towers on identical ground can fare completely differently.
- FEMA has issued letters removing individual buildings from a flood zone. There are dozens downtown. A ranking that ignores them would be wrong about specific buildings, by name, in public.
So each building page shows what both maps say about that building's land, and leaves the judgment to you.
What to do with this
- Ask the building what happened during Hurricane Sandy. Downtown flooded badly in 2012 and people remember.
- Ask where the elevator machinery and the electrical switchgear are. Ground floor or basement is the thing to know.
- Get an actual insurance quote for the actual apartment before you commit. A zone is not a premium.
- If a seller says the building has a FEMA letter removing it from a flood zone, ask to see it.
Zones read from FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer against each building's land parcel. Checked 15 October 2026.