Essex County, New Jersey: hazard history

FEMA declared 33 disasters that named Essex County between 1965 and 2021.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4614 2021 · Hurricane · Remnants Of Hurricane Ida
• EM-3573 2021 · Hurricane · Remnants Of Hurricane Ida
• DR-4574 2020 · Hurricane · Tropical Storm Isaias
• DR-4488 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3451 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4368 2018 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• DR-4264 2016 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• DR-4086 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• EM-3354 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.

NOAA storm event records in Essex County each year. The busiest year was 2021, with 40 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flash Flood · Sep 16, 1999$7.3M
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 5724741
2. Flash Flood · Oct 19, 1996$5.0M
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 5582272
3. Flood · Apr 15, 2007$4.0M
   NOAA name: ESSEX · 1 death · NOAA record 29673
4. Flash Flood · Jul 24, 1997$3.0M
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 5610440
5. Flood · Apr 2, 2005$2.0M
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 5443443

Deadliest records

1. High Wind · Oct 29, 20125 deaths
   NOAA name: EASTERN ESSEX · $900K damage · NOAA record 413117
2. Heat · Jul 4, 19993 deaths
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 5701103
3. Heat · Aug 1, 20062 deaths
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 5531611
4. Strong Wind · Dec 25, 20082 deaths
   NOAA name: ESSEX · 2 injuries · NOAA record 148072
5. Flash Flood · Sep 1, 20212 deaths
   NOAA name: ESSEX · NOAA record 994613

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 $163.0M on 5,869 claims in Essex 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 Essex 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 by county and others by forecast zone, and names both. Records are counted as Essex County when their NOAA name is this county's name, alone or with a word like “Coastal” or “Inland” in front. The county codes NOAA also publishes have not been loaded for New Jersey yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: EASTERN ESSEX, ESSEX, WESTERN ESSEX. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 0% of New Jersey's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.