ZIP 28449
New Hanover County, NC

The heaviest year

1996 is the heaviest year on file: 217 paid claims, 26.9% 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 Fran, with 184 claims.

260 of those claims — 32.3% — were filed since 2017. The pattern here is still active.

Named event	Paid claims	Share of record
Hurricane Fran	184	22.8%
Tropical Cyclone Eight	163	20.2%
Hurricane Floyd	109	13.5%

Where the claims sat on the map

Of the 806 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 635 — 78.8% — were on properties rated outside the mapped high-risk area, in a B, C or X zone. Most of the paid flooding in this ZIP happened to properties the maps did not treat as high risk. 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 Pinch Gut Creek at U.S. Highway 17 (15.7 mi), Cape Fear River at Wilmington (IN MLLW) (17.5 mi) and Lockwood Folly River at SR 211 (18.6 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 28449 →

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.