Cape May County, New Jersey: hazard history

FEMA declared 34 disasters that named Cape May County between 1965 and 2021.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3573 2021 · Hurricane · Remnants Of Hurricane Ida
• DR-4614 2021 · Hurricane · Remnants Of Hurricane Ida
• DR-4597 2021 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• DR-4574 2020 · Hurricane · Tropical Storm Isaias
• EM-3451 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4488 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4264 2016 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• EM-3354 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4086 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4048 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storm

Not counted above: 2 statewide declarations, which covered every county in New Jersey. A declaration is a decision to send federal help, not a measure of how bad an event was. Records run from 1953. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Records start in 1996. Damage is NOAA's estimate at the time, in nominal dollars, and is often rounded; it is not insurance claims data. A storm that crossed two NOAA zones in this county is recorded, and counted, once per zone. A storm filed against a forecast zone is counted in every county that zone covers, with the whole storm's damage; do not add these figures across counties.

NOAA storm event records in Cape May County each year. The busiest year was 2007, with 92 records.

Years with no record are left out of the table, not shown as zero.

Costliest records

1. High Wind · Oct 29, 2012$150.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 1 death · NOAA record 417015
2. Coastal Flood · Oct 28, 2012$125.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 416938
3. Coastal Flood · Nov 13, 2009$121.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 201004
4. Blizzard · Feb 6, 2010$50.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 212669
5. Blizzard · Feb 6, 2010$50.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 212671

Deadliest records

1. Heat · Jul 18, 20052 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5468228
2. Rip Current · Jul 12, 20082 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 124477
3. Winter Weather · Dec 31, 20092 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 205756
4. High Surf · Sep 18, 20031 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $2.0M damage · NOAA record 5337624
5. Rip Current · Jul 22, 20051 death
   NOAA name: Cape May County · NOAA record 5468211

Each line is one NOAA record, linked to its page at NOAA. One large storm can appear more than once if NOAA recorded it in several zones of this county. Dollars are nominal.

The National Flood Insurance Program paid $404.6M on 28,024 claims in Cape May County from 1978 to 2024.

A count of claims, not a rate: NFIP publishes no count of insured homes beside it, and most flood damage is uninsured. Nominal dollars. Records run from 1978 to 2024; claims filed without a county code are not on any county page. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

A hazard vulnerability analysis rates each hazard for probability, impact, preparedness and response. Probability is the one column the county’s federal record can fill — NCEI storm events from 1996 to 2026 and FEMA declarations naming the county — and this is what it says for a facility here, on the 0–3 scale of the all-hazards structure surveyors expect. The other six columns are the facility’s own judgment about its building, and Calchis leaves them blank.

A dash means the record does not speak to that hazard; it is not a zero. Whether a finished document satisfies the CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule is the facility’s finding and its surveyor’s. Complete the HVA for a facility in Cape May County — the technological, human and hazardous-materials rows, the six facility columns, the approval and the printed document — or read the sample analysis on that page first.

• Every figure is counted from public federal records held by Calchis: NOAA NCEI Storm Events, FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations, and FEMA NFIP claims. Nothing is modeled or estimated.
• NOAA files some events against a county and others against an NWS forecast zone, and publishes a code for both. Records are counted as Cape May County by that code — county records by the county's own FIPS code, zone records through the National Weather Service's published list of which counties each zone covers. No name matching is involved. Of 1,643 records, 289 were filed against this county and 1,354 against a forecast zone covering it. A zone storm is counted in every county its zone covers, and its damage figure is the whole storm's, not this county's share — NOAA does not publish that split. So these figures describe this county; they must not be added up across counties. Left out: 1% of New Jersey's NOAA records, which are marine zones or zones NWS does not map to a county.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.