Passaic County flood claims by town: the FEMA insurance record for all 16 municipalities
There is no county table of flood-zone shares for Passaic County, but there is something more telling: every flood insurance claim FEMA has recorded, sorted by community. It shows a county whose flood losses are piled into a handful of towns where rivers meet.
FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program records 14,249 lifetime claims across Passaic County's 16 municipalities, and about 85 per cent of them come from four: Wayne, Pompton Lakes, Little Falls and Paterson. This page lists every town's claim count and repetitive-loss properties from FEMA's OpenFEMA data, adds a claims-per-1,000-homes figure we calculated from those claims and US Census Bureau housing counts, and explains, from FEMA's own flood study and the river gauges, why the losses gather where the Pompton River meets the Passaic.
The short version
- FEMA NFIP records show 14,249 lifetime flood claims across Passaic County's 16 municipalities; Wayne alone has 6,318.
- Wayne, Pompton Lakes, Little Falls and Paterson account for about 85 per cent of the county's claims.
- By our calculation from FEMA claims and Census housing counts, Pompton Lakes has about 587 lifetime claims per 1,000 homes, the highest in the county; Prospect Park has under one.
- FEMA's flood study shows the Pompton (355 square miles) and the upper Passaic (361 square miles) meeting just above Little Falls, which is where the losses concentrate.
- Hurricane Irene in 2011 is the worst named event for every top-six town; Hurricane Ida in 2021 tops the record in Clifton and Haledon.
What the numbers are, and what they are not
Three sets of public figures sit behind this page. Claim counts come from FEMA's OpenFEMA release of National Flood Insurance Program claims for Passaic County, grouped by the NFIP community each claim was filed in, with the year of loss and the named flood event. Repetitive-loss counts come from FEMA's NFIP Multiple Loss Properties dataset as it stood on 2 August 2026; a repetitive-loss property is an insured building with more than one significant flood claim, and the severe category is the worst of these. Housing units come from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020 to 2024. Two cautions. A claim count covers the whole life of the programme, and one house can claim many times, so it measures how much flooding insured buildings have suffered, not how many buildings flood. And only insured losses appear. No verified flood-zone percentage exists for Passaic County towns, so none is given here.
The ranking: lifetime NFIP claims by municipality
FEMA's NFIP records, from most claims to fewest, with repetitive-loss properties in brackets and the severe repetitive-loss subset after the slash. Wayne 6,318 (476 / 229). Pompton Lakes 2,535 (259 / 111). Little Falls 1,902 (229 / 85). Paterson 1,337 (196 / 48). Woodland Park 661 (115 / 16). Totowa 550 (49 / 9). Hawthorne 279 (22 / 7). Clifton 164 (13 / 2). Passaic 160 (10 / 3). West Milford 127 (13 / 3). Bloomingdale 87 (14 / 0). Wanaque 51 (8 / 1). Haledon 35 (1 / 0). Ringwood 24 (1 / 0). North Haledon 17 (0 / 0). Prospect Park 2 (0 / 0). Added together, the 16 communities come to 14,249 claims and 1,406 repetitive-loss properties, of which 514 are severe. Wayne on its own holds 44 per cent of the county's claims and about a third of its repetitive-loss properties. For every town in the top six, Hurricane Irene in 2011 is the single worst named event in the FEMA record.
Claims per 1,000 homes: our calculation
Raw counts favour big places, so we divided each town's FEMA lifetime claim count by its US Census Bureau housing-unit total and multiplied by 1,000. This is our own arithmetic, not a FEMA or Census figure, and because claims accumulate over decades it is a measure of intensity, not a yearly chance. Pompton Lakes 587. Wayne 334. Little Falls 326. Totowa 138. Woodland Park 119. Hawthorne 35. Bloomingdale 29. Paterson 25. West Milford 12.5. Wanaque 11.5. Haledon 10.8. Passaic 7.4. Ringwood 5.6. North Haledon 5.5. Clifton 4.7. Prospect Park 0.9. The county as a whole works out at about 77. The re-ordering is the point. Paterson has the fourth-highest claim count but, spread across the largest housing stock in the county, sits mid-table. Pompton Lakes has recorded more than one claim for every two of its homes. Clifton, the second-largest city, is near the bottom on both measures.
Why the claims gather where the rivers meet
FEMA's countywide Flood Insurance Study for Passaic County, revised April 17, 2020, supplies the geography. It treats the Pompton River as starting at the confluence of the Ramapo and Pequannock Rivers, and lists the Ramapo, Pequannock and Wanaque among the flood sources for Pompton Lakes. By the time the Pompton reaches the Passaic its drainage area is 355 square miles, almost exactly the 361 square miles the Passaic itself drains just upstream of the junction. Together they make up most of the 762 square miles above the US Geological Survey gauge at Little Falls. In other words, the land around Wayne, Pompton Lakes and Little Falls takes the runoff of two river systems of the same size at once. The study also records that the stretch of the Passaic between Chatham and Little Falls, the Central Passaic, can see its flow reverse in a flood, and that the Pompton's behaviour is shaped by reservoirs including Wanaque, Monksville and Greenwood Lake and by the floodgates of the Pompton Lake Dam. FEMA adds that the county's dams are not managed as flood protection structures.
The storms behind the claims
The years that dominate the FEMA claim record for Wayne, Pompton Lakes and Little Falls are the same years that top the National Weather Service lists of river crests. On the Ramapo River gauge at Pompton Lakes, where major flood stage is 14.5 feet, the highest crests are 22.62 feet on August 29, 2011 (Irene), 21.6 feet in April 1984, 18.05 feet in March 2010 and 16.99 feet in April 2007. On the Passaic at Little Falls, where major flood stage is 9 feet, Irene crested at 14.19 feet on August 30, 2011, ahead of 12.91 feet in April 1984. Wayne's FEMA record shows 1,543 claims with a 2011 date of loss, 624 in 2010 and 596 in 1984. Hurricane Ida in September 2021, declared a federal disaster for Passaic County as DR-4614, left a different signature: it is the top event in the record for Clifton (40 claims) and Haledon (6) and ranks high in Passaic, Totowa and North Haledon, places where short, intense rain overwhelms brooks and storm drains rather than where big rivers rise slowly.
The quieter half of the county
Below the top six, the record thins out quickly. FEMA describes the northern half of the county, home to Ringwood, West Milford, Wanaque and Bloomingdale, as mountainous, rural and full of lakes, and its claims come largely from smaller streams such as Ringwood Creek, Belcher Creek and Posts Brook. The towns along Molly Ann Brook, Haledon, North Haledon and Prospect Park, together have 54 lifetime claims and a single repetitive-loss property. That is not the same as no water damage. Low claim counts in these places mean river flooding of insured buildings has been rare; they say nothing about basements that take in groundwater, sewer backups or storm-drain overflow, none of which a flood claim counts. FEMA's FloodSmart site reports that nearly one third of NFIP claims from 2014 to 2024 came from outside high-risk flood areas.
What this means if you own or rent here
If you live in one of the confluence towns, the claim record is a reason to know the gauges: the National Weather Service pages for the Ramapo at Pompton Lakes and the Passaic at Little Falls show the current stage, the forecast crest and the flood categories. Elsewhere in the county, the useful question is about your own building: where water would come in, and what cover you hold. Flood is a separate policy from homeowners or renters insurance, and FEMA states that a new flood policy normally takes effect 30 days after purchase. Whether a particular loss is covered is decided by your insurer and the policy wording. For the zone of a specific address, use the FEMA Flood Map Service Center; a town-wide figure cannot answer that.
Common questions
Which Passaic County town has the most flood insurance claims?
Wayne, with 6,318 lifetime claims in FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program records and 476 repetitive-loss properties, 229 of them severe. Pompton Lakes is second with 2,535 claims and Little Falls third with 1,902.
How was the claims-per-1,000-homes figure worked out?
We divided each municipality's lifetime NFIP claim count from FEMA by its housing units in the US Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey, then multiplied by 1,000. It is our calculation, not an official statistic, and because claims build up over decades and one house can claim more than once, it shows relative intensity, not the odds of flooding in any year.
Why does Wayne flood so much more than the rest of the county?
FEMA's Flood Insurance Study names the Pompton and Ramapo Rivers among Wayne's flood sources as well as the Passaic, and the Pompton and upper Passaic each drain roughly 360 square miles before they meet. The largest claim years in Wayne, 2011, 2010 and 1984, match the highest crests on the river gauges at Pompton Lakes and Little Falls.
What percentage of my town is in the flood zone?
No verified town-by-town flood-zone percentage is published for Passaic County, so this page does not give one. Search your address at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center; the countywide flood study was revised on April 17, 2020.
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