Flood history / Delaware / ZIP 19970
ZIP 19970
Sussex County, DE
Property owners in ZIP 19970 have been paid $1.5M on 155 National Flood Insurance Program claims between 1989 and 2025 — an average of $10K a claim, across 21 separate years in which someone here filed and was paid.
The heaviest year
2012 is the heaviest year on file: 64 paid claims, 41.3% of the ZIP's total. That one year accounts for more than a quarter of the ZIP's entire record. The largest named event in the record is Hurricane Sandy, with 53 claims.
12 of those claims — 7.7% — were filed since 2017. The bulk of this ZIP's record is older than that.
Where the claims sat on the map
Of the 155 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 44 — 28.4% — were on properties rated outside the mapped high-risk area, in a B, C or X zone. Being outside the high-risk zone has not meant much here. Flood insurance is not required outside the high-risk zone, and most properties there do not carry it — so these counts come from the minority who did.
The water near this ZIP
The closest gauges publishing official flood thresholds are Jefferson Creek at South Bethany Beach (IN MLLW) (3.5 mi), Indian River near Indian River Inlet (IN MLLW) (4.1 mi) and Indian River at Rosedale Beach (IN MLLW) (6.6 mi). A gauge describes one point on one river — it will not see street drainage, sewer backup, storm surge or flash flooding.
Read current gauge conditions for 19970 →
What this does not say
These are paid National Flood Insurance Program claims, nothing more. They count insured properties whose owners filed and were paid, so they are a floor on how often this ZIP has flooded — never a measure of how likely it is to flood next. Uninsured flooding leaves no trace here at all.
The figures are aggregates published by FEMA. No individual claim, address or policyholder appears on this page or in the data behind it. Nothing here is a forecast, a warning, or advice about insurance.