Flooding in North Arlington, New Jersey: the flood zone, the record, and what to do
North Arlington has a sizeable mapped flood zone and a small flood insurance record. Both facts are true at once, and the distance between them is the most useful thing to understand about water in the borough.
Bergen County's 2026 Hazard Mitigation Plan places 21.29 per cent of North Arlington's land in the FEMA 1 per cent annual chance flood zone, mostly low Meadowlands ground on the borough's eastern side. FEMA records just 55 flood insurance claims there over the life of the programme and 12 repetitive-loss properties. Federal assistance records suggest that far more households have taken water damage than have ever claimed on a flood policy.
The short version
- The Bergen County 2026 Hazard Mitigation Plan puts 21.29 per cent of North Arlington in the FEMA 1 per cent annual chance flood zone.
- A 2014 county draft split that zone into 5 per cent riverine (Passaic) and 16 per cent coastal (Meadowlands).
- FEMA counts only 55 flood insurance claims in the borough, led by Sandy (21), and 12 repetitive-loss properties.
- After Ida, 185 North Arlington owner-occupants registered for FEMA assistance, against 9 Ida flood claims.
- About 56 per cent of households rent, and a landlord's policy does not cover tenants' belongings.
Where the flood zone is
Table 4.6-1 of the county plan gives North Arlington 1,619.78 acres of land and puts 344.85 acres, or 21.29 per cent, in FEMA's Special Flood Hazard Area. Adding the 0.2 per cent annual chance zone takes it to 23.39 per cent. Most of that area is not where most people live. A 2014 draft of the county plan, on an older map basis, divided the borough's 1 per cent zone into 5 per cent riverine, along the Passaic on the west, and 16 per cent coastal, on the Meadowlands side to the east. The coastal part borders Lyndhurst and Kearny; the borough's storm surge map from the Meadowlands Research and Restoration Institute labels the 1-E, Erie and Kingsland landfills there. FEMA's flood study notes that berms and highway and railroad embankments around Kearny act as barriers to low-level tidal flooding, but that gaps in them let extreme Hackensack tides through.
A small claim record
FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program data list 55 claims in North Arlington, all filed under the borough as an NFIP community. A count by ZIP code, which our North Arlington help page quotes, comes to 57; the two figures are compiled differently. Either way it is one of the smaller records among Bergen County towns with this much mapped zone, at fewer than one claim for every hundred housing units. The largest year was 2012, with 21 claims, followed by 2011 with 12, 2021 with 9 and 2007 with 5. FEMA attributes 21 claims to Hurricane Sandy, 12 to Hurricane Irene, 9 to Hurricane Ida and 4 to the April 2007 nor'easter. FEMA's multiple-loss records, as of 2 August 2026, list 12 repetitive-loss properties in the borough, one of them severe repetitive loss.
The households who did not claim
FEMA's Individual Assistance records tell a fuller story. After Sandy, 92 North Arlington owner-occupants made valid registrations for federal help, against 21 Sandy flood insurance claims. After Irene there were 120 registrations, and after Ida 185, with 130 of the Ida registrations approved, set against 9 Ida flood claims. These records count different things, and a registration is not a measure of damage, but the direction is plain: many more households took water than held a flood policy to claim on. A standard homeowners or renters policy excludes flood, so for those households the cost of drying out and rebuilding after a flood fell outside private insurance.
Two waters, two kinds of warning
The Passaic along North Arlington's western edge is tidal, part of the 17 miles that the Environmental Protection Agency describes between Newark Bay and Dundee Dam. A river flood here comes from rain far upstream and can peak a day or more after the storm. On the eastern side the risk is surge from Newark Bay pushed up the Hackensack, and FEMA's flood study attributes the principal flooding in southern Bergen County to those tidal stages. The county plan's storm surge analysis finds two of the borough's critical facilities exposed in the stronger hurricane categories, and the 2014 draft listed the North Arlington and Lyndhurst joint wastewater facility among facilities vulnerable to surge. North Arlington is one of the ten Bergen municipalities partly inside the Meadowlands District, where the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority handles floodplain management.
What this means if you own or rent here
First, look up your address on the FEMA Flood Map Service Center. Most North Arlington homes are outside the mapped zone, but the zone is not small, and being next to it is not the same as being safe from it. Second, check what you actually hold. Flood is a separate policy, and FEMA states that a new policy normally takes effect 30 days after purchase, so it cannot be bought once a storm is forecast. Third, if you rent, which the US Census Bureau says about 56 per cent of North Arlington households do, your landlord's insurance does not cover your belongings; contents-only flood cover exists for tenants. Away from the zone, a working sump pump and nothing valuable on the basement floor are the practical defences against a downpour like Ida. Whether a given loss is covered is decided by your insurer and your policy wording.
Common questions
Does North Arlington, NJ flood?
Parts of it can. The county hazard plan places 21.29 per cent of the borough's land in the FEMA 1 per cent annual chance flood zone, most of it on the Meadowlands side. FEMA's flood insurance record is small, 55 claims, but federal assistance records show many more households affected by Sandy, Irene and Ida.
Why are there so few flood claims in North Arlington?
The records do not give a reason. Much of the mapped zone is low ground away from housing, and a flood claim can only be filed by someone who holds a flood policy. FEMA assistance registrations after Sandy, Irene and Ida were several times higher than the flood claims for the same storms.
Which storms caused flood claims in North Arlington?
FEMA attributes 21 claims to Hurricane Sandy, 12 to Hurricane Irene, 9 to Hurricane Ida and 4 to the April 2007 nor'easter.
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