FEMA Flood Maps Protested by Public

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection held a local public hearing. What do the new standards mean to you? Tell us.

A huge crowd of people from all over the state gathered at a Thursday night NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) public hearing in Long Branch to protest the potential adoption of FEMA's advisory base flood elevation (ABFE) maps as the new elevation standard for the the state. The crowd, mostly comprised of unhappy homeowners impacted by Hurricane Sandy, sounded off at Long Branch City Hall on the contentious issue. "The thought of increasing flood insurance premiums into the tens of thousands of dollars is daunting," Toms River resident Margaret Quinn said. Quinn lives in the Silverton section of Toms River, and said her house was more than 50 percent damaged. She, like so many others, has been displaced by the hurricane, and…

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FEMA Flood Maps Include Elevation Increase of One to Five Feet on Average

The Advisory Base Flood Elevations published Saturday morning. FEMA hosted a teleconference Friday to explain the motivation behind the reports.

UPDATE: New "Advisory Base Flood Elevations" are now posted to this interactive map. More resources are available on FEMA's ABFE page for New Jersey and New York. __________ New maps have been released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency Saturday that recommend that residents in flood zones in 10 counties and 194 communities throughout the state consider raising their homes anywhere between one and five feet on average, FEMA officials said Friday. Rumson last week adopted an ordinance requiring a base height elevation (BHE) in flood zones of 13 feet above sea level. The ordinance specified that the borough's parameter would either stay at the 13 feet or higher if the FEMA recommendation was higher. It is lower. The maps, part of the…

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Hurricane Sandy

Rumson First to Raise Home Base Height Elevations in Flood Zones

Mayor Ekdahl proud of expeditious approval; some raise concerns about costs

It was meant as a means to a more expeditious end for getting Sandy-ravaged homes rebuilt and elevated in Rumson. But not everyone saw it that way. The Borough Council last night adopted two amended ordinances: one to increase the limit on the base height elevation (BHE) standards for homes in FEMA-designated flood areas to 13 feet above sea level; and, another, that was in the works pre-Sandy, on raising the permitted height of homes from 30 to 35 feet, the building height now measured from the finished floor as opposed to existing grade. “The reason for that is so that you don’t wind up with kind of a squished down house …” Mayor John Ekdahl explained. The changes to the two ordinances, he and other officials added, coincidentally work …

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