Cape Elizabeth, ME Flood Zones: What We Confirmed
Cape Elizabeth's own map tells you something most visitors never notice: of the town's total 45.93 square miles, only 14.70 square miles is land. The other 31.23 square miles is water, a reflection of the headland and peninsula shape that juts out into Casco Bay and gives the town its three signature landmarks, Crescent Beach State Park, Two Lights State Park, and Fort Williams Park with Portland Head Light. That same exposed, water-surrounded geography is exactly why flood and storm risk here deserves a straight answer rather than a marketing one. This page covers what current research actually confirms about storm damage, erosion, and flood-zone data for Cape Elizabeth, and it says plainly where the publicly available information stops short of telling you the flood zone for any one address.
A Peninsula That Is Mostly Water, By the Map
Cape Elizabeth is not a large town in land terms, but it is a large one in total area, 45.93 square miles, because more than two-thirds of that area, 31.23 square miles, is water rather than dry ground. Only 14.70 square miles is actually land. That is not a quirk of measurement, it is the direct result of the town's shape: a headland jutting into Casco Bay, bordered by South Portland to the north and Scarborough to the west, with the Spurwink River forming part of the shared boundary with Scarborough.
That geography is worth understanding before any conversation about flood risk, because it means Cape Elizabeth's ocean-facing edge is genuinely long relative to the town's dry-land footprint. Crescent Beach State Park, Two Lights State Park, and Fort Williams Park, home to Portland Head Light, all sit directly on that exposed edge, and each has its own storm and erosion history, not one town-wide story.
The January 2024 Storm Sequence at Crescent Beach and Portland Head Light
Two major storms hit Maine's coast on January 10 and January 13, 2024, with record tidal levels recorded in both Portland and Bar Harbor on the 13th. A Portland Press Herald piece published January 18, 2024 on storm damage to Maine's beaches and coastal parks specifically names Crescent Beach and Kettle Cove, both in Cape Elizabeth, among the storm-impacted locations. That reporting does not include a Cape Elizabeth-specific damage dollar figure, and this page will not invent one. Officials quoted in the same piece said it was too early to tell how badly some areas were damaged, with dune recovery typically taking a year or two.
Portland Head Light itself took separately documented damage from the January 10, 2024 storm specifically. Contemporaneous reporting, including WGME's coverage, documented waves pounding the rocks around the lighthouse that day, with photos showing damage to a door at the lighthouse and to a stone footpath outside it, amid storm-surge warnings for wave action erosion and splash-over. A separate feature on Maine's lighthouses statewide reported millions of dollars in storm damage across the state's 66 lighthouses in that same January 2024 sequence, though that broader statewide figure should not be read as a specific repair cost for Portland Head Light, which was not found in this research.
Crescent Beach's Older Erosion History, and Its Unusual Lease
Storm damage from January 2024 is not the only documented erosion at Crescent Beach State Park. The park's roughly 1.4-kilometer pocket beach has its own separate, older, documented erosion history at the adjoining Kettle Cove, in 2005 and 2007, well before the 2024 storm sequence. That history is worth knowing on its own terms, distinct from any single storm event.
A separate, genuinely unusual fact about Crescent Beach State Park is that the State of Maine does not own the land it sits on. The state has leased the property since 1961 from a private landowner, Black Point Corporation, via The Sprague Corporation, starting at $1 a year under a 50-year lease, rising to $10,000 a year starting in 2011, with a further lease extension agreed in 2013. This research could not fully disentangle the exact current lease terms and ownership status, and a stale reference to a 2018 lease expiration needs re-confirming as of 2026. Anyone weighing the park's long-term status, or its role in nearby property values, should check current lease terms directly with Maine's Bureau of Parks and Lands rather than assume the arrangement described above still applies unchanged.
What FEMA Data We Could Not Confirm
This is the honest gap on this page. This research did not find Cape Elizabeth-specific FEMA or NFIP flood-zone data, no VE versus AE parcel-level breakdown, no insured-property count, and no town-specific floodplain-management page comparable to what some neighboring Maine towns maintain for their own residents. That is a genuine data gap for this town as of this research pass, not a claim that no such data exists anywhere.
Anyone evaluating flood risk at a specific Cape Elizabeth property should check Maine's Flood Mapping program directly at maine.gov/dacf/flood/, and check the Town of Cape Elizabeth's own municipal site for current flood-zone designations and NFIP participation. No zone letter, parcel count, or insured-property figure is stated on this page because none was independently confirmed.
Maine's Shoreland Zoning Act Applies Here Too
Maine's statewide Mandatory Shoreland Zoning Act applies to Cape Elizabeth the same way it applies to every coastal Maine town, governing setbacks and vegetation-clearing rules near the water. This research confirmed that general statewide applicability but did not pull Cape Elizabeth's own specific setback distances or shoreland ordinance text.
Anyone planning construction, a seawall, or other shoreline work on a Cape Elizabeth property should pull the town's own shoreland ordinance directly, likely through its municipal code portal, rather than assume a generic statewide setback number applies to a specific parcel.
No Confirmed Hurricane Account for Cape Elizabeth
This research did not find a Cape Elizabeth-specific historical hurricane-landfall account, whether for the 1938 Great New England Hurricane or 1991's Hurricane Bob. That absence should not be read as evidence either way, it simply means this research pass did not confirm one, and no such claim is made here without further primary-source verification.
The January 2024 winter storm sequence, not a hurricane, remains the strongest current, sourced storm-damage narrative available for Cape Elizabeth.
How to Check a Specific Cape Elizabeth Parcel
None of the storm history, erosion history, or lease detail above substitutes for a parcel-specific flood-zone determination. Go directly to FEMA's Flood Map Service Center at msc.fema.gov, enter the property address, and pull the current effective Flood Insurance Rate Map panel for that parcel.
From there, confirm current flood-zone designation and NFIP participation with the Town of Cape Elizabeth directly, check Maine's Flood Mapping program at maine.gov/dacf/flood/ for state-level context, and talk with a Cape Elizabeth-familiar insurance agent about NFIP premium costs before signing a purchase contract, not after.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Cape Elizabeth's total area, 45.93 square miles (118.96 square kilometers), with 14.70 square miles of land and 31.23 square miles of water, is sourced to Wikipedia's Cape Elizabeth, Maine entry. The January 10 and January 13, 2024 storm sequence, and Crescent Beach and Kettle Cove being named as storm-impacted locations, is sourced to Portland Press Herald reporting published January 18, 2024; no Cape Elizabeth-specific dollar damage figure was found in that reporting and none is stated here. Portland Head Light's door and stone-footpath damage from the January 10, 2024 storm specifically is sourced to WGME's contemporaneous reporting. The statewide figure of millions of dollars in storm damage across Maine's 66 lighthouses is sourced to a separate feature on Maine lighthouse storm damage and should not be read as a specific Portland Head Light repair cost, which was not found in this research. Crescent Beach State Park's documented 2005 and 2007 erosion at Kettle Cove is sourced to Wikipedia's Crescent Beach State Park entry. The park's leased-land status, the 1961 lease from Black Point Corporation via The Sprague Corporation, the $1-per-year starting rate under a 50-year lease, the increase to $10,000 per year starting in 2011, and the 2013 lease extension, are also sourced to Wikipedia's Crescent Beach State Park entry; this research could not fully confirm current lease terms and ownership status as of 2026, including a stale reference to a 2018 lease expiration, and anyone relying on the park's long-term status should check current terms directly with Maine's Bureau of Parks and Lands. This research did not find Cape Elizabeth-specific FEMA or NFIP flood-zone data, including VE-versus-AE parcel boundaries, insured-property counts, or a town-specific floodplain-management page, and none is stated here as fact; check Maine's Flood Mapping program at maine.gov/dacf/flood/ and the Town of Cape Elizabeth's own municipal site directly for current information. Maine's statewide Mandatory Shoreland Zoning Act's general applicability to all coastal Maine towns, including Cape Elizabeth, is confirmed, but this research did not pull Cape Elizabeth's own specific setback distances or shoreland ordinance text. No confirmed historical hurricane-specific damage account, including the 1938 Great New England Hurricane or 1991's Hurricane Bob, was found for Cape Elizabeth in this research. This page is general education, not a flood-zone determination. For an address-specific FEMA flood zone, use FEMA's Flood Map Service Center (msc.fema.gov) directly, contact the Town of Cape Elizabeth for parcel-specific information, and confirm floodplain-management and construction requirements with a licensed engineer, surveyor, or insurance professional before making any purchase or building decision.