The High Water Mark (HWM) Initiative is a component of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) aimed to increase local communities’ awareness of flood risk and encourage risk mitigation actions. The HWM Initiative uses signs on public and private property to show the high water mark from past flooding events, like Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The Monmouth County, NJ Division of Planning began working with the County Community Rating System (CRS) Assistance Program to compile data on the location of high water marks throughout the county resulting from Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The High Water Mark Story Map is accessible online where one can find the location of the signs throughout their community, as well as learn about past flooding events. Through this technology, the County and its Municipal partners create virtual tours of our past flooding events bringing awareness and education to all ages.The intention of this Story Map is to support resiliency and risk mitigation throughout Monmouth County municipalities. These efforts are from a joint partnership between Monmouth County Division of Planning, Monmouth County Office of Emergency Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program, and Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute (UCI). The UCI works with Monmouth County and FEMA to provide free land surveying for County municipalities interested in participating in the Monmouth County HWM Initiative.Accessibility updated May 2023.
A FEMA housing inspection for renters is used to assess personal property loss and for owners to assess damage to their home as well as personal property. This inspection is done to determine eligibility for FEMA Individual Assistance. For both rental and owner inspections, if the property has flood damage the inspector measures the height of the flooding. They indicate the highest floor of the flooding (for example, Basement, 1st floor, 2nd floor, etc…) and the extent of the flooding in that room. In addition, for the units without flooding, HUD has estimated minor/major/severe damage based on the damage inspection estimates for real property (owner) and personal property (renter).In an effort to maintain the confidentiality of residents this file only presents data on block groups with ten or more damaged housing units. The suppression of block groups with fewer than ten damaged housing units results in an exclusion of approximately 6% of the total flooded units. These data reflect Hurricane Sandy damage in the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. These data are incomplete, as each day there are additional registrants and inspections. This should be a viewed as a preliminary snapshot to assist with planning.To learn more about HUD's long-term recovery efforts for victims of Hurricane Sandy visit: https://www.hud.gov/sandyrebuilding, for questions about the spatial attribution of this dataset, please reach out to us at GISHelpdesk@hud.gov.
Hurricane Sandy directly hit the Atlantic shoreline of New Jersey during several astronomical high tide cycles in late October, 2012. The eastern seaboard areas are subject to sea level rise and increased severity and frequency of storm events, prompting habitat and land use planning changes. Wetland Aquatic Research Center (WARC) has conducted detailed mapping of marine and estuarine wetlands and deepwater habitats, including beaches and tide flats, and upland land use/land cover, using specially-acquired aerial imagery flown at 1-meter resolution.These efforts will assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) continuing endeavors to map the barrier islands adhering to Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) guidelines. Mapped areas consist of selected federal lands including, National Park Service areas, USFWS National Wildlife Refuges, and selected CBRA Units, including barrier islands and marshes in New York and New Jersey. These vital wetland areas are important for migratory waterfowl and neotropical bird habitats, wildlife food chain support and nurseries for shellfish and finfish populations. Coastal wetlands also play an important function as storm surge buffers. This project includes mapping of dominant estuarine wetland plant species useful for wetland functional analysis and wildlife evaluation and management concerns. It also aims to integrate with and offer updated databases pertinent to: USFWS NWR and NWI programs, NOAA tide flats and beaches data, FEMA flood zone data, Natural Heritage Endangered and Threated Species, watershed management, and state and local land use planning.
Hurricane Sandy directly hit the Atlantic shoreline of New Jersey during several astronomical high tide cycles in late October, 2012. The eastern seaboard areas are subject to sea level rise and increased severity and frequency of storm events, prompting habitat and land use planning changes. Wetland Aquatic Research Center (WARC) has conducted detailed mapping of marine and estuarine wetlands and deepwater habitats, including beaches and tide flats, and upland land use/land cover, using specially-acquired aerial imagery flown at 1-meter resolution.These efforts will assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) continuing endeavors to map the barrier islands adhering to Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) guidelines. Mapped areas consist of selected federal lands including, National Park Service areas, USFWS National Wildlife Refuges, and selected CBRA Units, including barrier islands and marshes in New York and New Jersey. These vital wetland areas are important for migratory waterfowl and neotropical bird habitats, wildlife food chain support and nurseries for shellfish and finfish populations. Coastal wetlands also play an important function as storm surge buffers. This project includes mapping of dominant estuarine wetland plant species useful for wetland functional analysis and wildlife evaluation and management concerns. It also aims to integrate with and offer updated databases pertinent to: USFWS NWR and NWI programs, NOAA tide flats and beaches data, FEMA flood zone data, Natural Heritage Endangered and Threated Species, watershed management, and state and local land use planning.
Hurricane Sandy directly hit the Atlantic shoreline of New Jersey during several astronomical high tide cycles in late October, 2012. The eastern seaboard areas are subject to sea level rise and increased severity and frequency of storm events, prompting habitat and land use planning changes. Wetland Aquatic Research Center (WARC) has conducted detailed mapping of marine and estuarine wetlands and deepwater habitats, including beaches and tide flats, and upland land use/land cover, using specially-acquired aerial imagery flown at 1-meter resolution.These efforts will assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) continuing endeavors to map the barrier islands adhering to Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) guidelines. Mapped areas consist of selected federal lands including, National Park Service areas, USFWS National Wildlife Refuges, and selected CBRA Units, including barrier islands and marshes in New York and New Jersey. These vital wetland areas are important for migratory waterfowl and neotropical bird habitats, wildlife food chain support and nurseries for shellfish and finfish populations. Coastal wetlands also play an important function as storm surge buffers. This project includes mapping of dominant estuarine wetland plant species useful for wetland functional analysis and wildlife evaluation and management concerns. It also aims to integrate with and offer updated databases pertinent to: USFWS NWR and NWI programs, NOAA tide flats and beaches data, FEMA flood zone data, Natural Heritage Endangered and Threated Species, watershed management, and state and local land use planning.
Hurricane Sandy directly hit the Atlantic shoreline of New Jersey during several astronomical high tide cycles in late October, 2012. The eastern seaboard areas are subject to sea level rise and increased severity and frequency of storm events, prompting habitat and land use planning changes. Wetland Aquatic Research Center (WARC) has conducted detailed mapping of marine and estuarine wetlands and deepwater habitats, including beaches and tide flats, and upland land use/land cover, using specially-acquired aerial imagery flown at 1-meter resolution.These efforts will assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) continuing endeavors to map the barrier islands adhering to Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) guidelines. Mapped areas consist of selected federal lands including, National Park Service areas, USFWS National Wildlife Refuges, and selected CBRA Units, including barrier islands and marshes in New York and New Jersey. These vital wetland areas are important for migratory waterfowl and neotropical bird habitats, wildlife food chain support and nurseries for shellfish and finfish populations. Coastal wetlands also play an important function as storm surge buffers. This project includes mapping of dominant estuarine wetland plant species useful for wetland functional analysis and wildlife evaluation and management concerns. It also aims to integrate with and offer updated databases pertinent to: USFWS NWR and NWI programs, NOAA tide flats and beaches data, FEMA flood zone data, Natural Heritage Endangered and Threated Species, watershed management, and state and local land use planning.
description: Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall on October 29, 2012, near Brigantine, New Jersey, had a significant impact on coastal New Jersey, including the large areas of emergent wetlands at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and the Barnegat Bay region. In response to Hurricane Sandy, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has undertaken several projects to assess the impacts of the storm and provide data and scientific analysis to support recovery and restoration efforts. As part of these efforts, the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program (CMGP) sponsored Coastal National Elevation Database (CoNED) Applications Project in collaboration with the USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a three-dimensional (3D) 1-meter topobathymetric elevation models (TBDEMs) for the New Jersey/Delaware sub-region including the Delaware Estuary and adjacent coastline. The integrated elevation data are extending the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) Elevation Dataset within the Hurricane Sandy impact zone to enable the widespread creation of flood, hurricane, and sea-level rise inundation hazard maps. More information on the USGS CoNED project is available at http://topotools.cr.usgs.gov/coned/index.php. The CoNED Applications Project team is also developing new applications for pre- and post-Hurricane Sandy regional lidar datasets for mapping the spatial extent of coastal wetlands. These new methods have been developed to derive detailed land/water polygons for an area in coastal New Jersey, which is dominated by a complex configuration of emergent wetlands and open water. Using pre- and post-Hurricane Sandy lidar data, repeatable geospatial methods were used to map the land/water spatial configuration at a regional scale to complement wetland mapping that uses traditional methods such as photointerpretation and image classification.; abstract: Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall on October 29, 2012, near Brigantine, New Jersey, had a significant impact on coastal New Jersey, including the large areas of emergent wetlands at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and the Barnegat Bay region. In response to Hurricane Sandy, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has undertaken several projects to assess the impacts of the storm and provide data and scientific analysis to support recovery and restoration efforts. As part of these efforts, the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program (CMGP) sponsored Coastal National Elevation Database (CoNED) Applications Project in collaboration with the USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a three-dimensional (3D) 1-meter topobathymetric elevation models (TBDEMs) for the New Jersey/Delaware sub-region including the Delaware Estuary and adjacent coastline. The integrated elevation data are extending the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) Elevation Dataset within the Hurricane Sandy impact zone to enable the widespread creation of flood, hurricane, and sea-level rise inundation hazard maps. More information on the USGS CoNED project is available at http://topotools.cr.usgs.gov/coned/index.php. The CoNED Applications Project team is also developing new applications for pre- and post-Hurricane Sandy regional lidar datasets for mapping the spatial extent of coastal wetlands. These new methods have been developed to derive detailed land/water polygons for an area in coastal New Jersey, which is dominated by a complex configuration of emergent wetlands and open water. Using pre- and post-Hurricane Sandy lidar data, repeatable geospatial methods were used to map the land/water spatial configuration at a regional scale to complement wetland mapping that uses traditional methods such as photointerpretation and image classification.
Hurricane Sandy directly hit the Atlantic shoreline of New Jersey during several astronomical high tide cycles in late October, 2012. The eastern seaboard areas are subject to sea level rise and increased severity and frequency of storm events, prompting habitat and land use planning changes. Wetland Aquatic Research Center (WARC) has conducted detailed mapping of marine and estuarine wetlands and deepwater habitats, including beaches and tide flats, and upland land use/land cover, using specially-acquired aerial imagery flown at 1-meter resolution.These efforts will assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) continuing endeavors to map the barrier islands adhering to Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) guidelines. Mapped areas consist of selected federal lands including, National Park Service areas, USFWS National Wildlife Refuges, and selected CBRA Units, including barrier islands and marshes in New York and New Jersey. These vital wetland areas are important for migratory waterfowl and neotropical bird habitats, wildlife food chain support and nurseries for shellfish and finfish populations. Coastal wetlands also play an important function as storm surge buffers. This project includes mapping of dominant estuarine wetland plant species useful for wetland functional analysis and wildlife evaluation and management concerns. It also aims to integrate with and offer updated databases pertinent to: USFWS NWR and NWI programs, NOAA tide flats and beaches data, FEMA flood zone data, Natural Heritage Endangered and Threated Species, watershed management, and state and local land use planning.
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The High Water Mark (HWM) Initiative is a component of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) aimed to increase local communities’ awareness of flood risk and encourage risk mitigation actions. The HWM Initiative uses signs on public and private property to show the high water mark from past flooding events, like Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The Monmouth County, NJ Division of Planning began working with the County Community Rating System (CRS) Assistance Program to compile data on the location of high water marks throughout the county resulting from Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The High Water Mark Story Map is accessible online where one can find the location of the signs throughout their community, as well as learn about past flooding events. Through this technology, the County and its Municipal partners create virtual tours of our past flooding events bringing awareness and education to all ages.The intention of this Story Map is to support resiliency and risk mitigation throughout Monmouth County municipalities. These efforts are from a joint partnership between Monmouth County Division of Planning, Monmouth County Office of Emergency Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program, and Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute (UCI). The UCI works with Monmouth County and FEMA to provide free land surveying for County municipalities interested in participating in the Monmouth County HWM Initiative.Accessibility updated May 2023.