Flood Zones in Seaside Park, New Jersey: What Is Confirmed and What Is Not
Seaside Park sits on the Barnegat Peninsula in Ocean County, New Jersey, at the southern end of the same barrier landform that carries Seaside Heights, its livelier neighbor to the north. The borough's total area is 0.81 square miles, split between 0.66 square miles of land and 0.16 square miles of water, meaning water makes up 19.51 percent of the town's footprint. This page does not state a current FEMA flood zone designation, base flood elevation, or Community Rating System classification for Seaside Park, because none was independently confirmed during this research pass, and a guessed-at zone letter could cost a buyer real money in insurance and permitting decisions. What is documented is the borough's own role in the September 12, 2013 boardwalk fire, whose root cause traces directly back to storm flooding, and that history is worth understanding on its own terms before assuming any specific flood-zone figure. Get the current, address-specific FEMA flood zone determination from FEMA's Flood Map Service Center before making any assumption about insurance requirements or building restrictions.
This Site's Twentieth New Jersey Market, and the Quieter Half of the Barnegat Peninsula
Seaside Park is this site's twentieth New Jersey market, built immediately after and directly adjacent to Seaside Heights. The two boroughs share the same stretch of the Barnegat Peninsula and share a boardwalk boundary, but they are separately incorporated municipalities, and Wikipedia's own framing of Seaside Park as "The Family Resort" draws a deliberate contrast with Seaside Heights, where commercial amusement piers and nightlife became the dominant identity instead. That distinction matters for flood-zone research the same way it matters for everything else about these two towns: any flood figure documented for Seaside Heights describes that borough's own parcels and its own history, not Seaside Park's, and this page does not assume the two carry identical flood risk simply because they sit on the same peninsula.
Seaside Park's own geography is a total area of 0.81 square miles, made up of 0.66 square miles of land and 0.16 square miles of water, with water accounting for 19.51 percent of the borough. That is a narrow, low-lying footprint squeezed between the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Barnegat Bay on the other, the same basic physical setup that makes flood-zone research necessary across nearly every barrier-peninsula town this site covers, but with Seaside Park's own specific numbers rather than a neighboring town's.
No Confirmed FEMA Flood Zone Designation for Seaside Park
This page will not state that any part of Seaside Park sits in a specific FEMA flood zone — Zone AE, Zone VE, Zone X, or otherwise — because no such designation was confirmed during this research pass. Most existing coverage of Seaside Park online is either aggregated population-data reporting or tourism guides that barely distinguish it from Seaside Heights, and none of it cites a current flood map, base flood elevation, or Community Rating System classification specific to this borough.
That gap should not be read as evidence that flood risk here is low. It means only that this research pass did not turn up a sourced, current figure worth repeating to a buyer. Seaside Park sits on the same exposed barrier peninsula as its neighbors, with a documented history of flood-related damage discussed below, and FEMA flood maps for coastal New Jersey communities are periodically updated after major storms. Get the current, parcel-specific flood zone, base flood elevation, and any Community Rating System discount directly from FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, and confirm how that zone applies to a specific address with the borough's own construction or zoning office before budgeting for flood insurance.
The 2013 Boardwalk Fire Started Here, in Wiring Damaged by Sandy Floodwater
The clearest piece of documented evidence that flood exposure has had real, physical consequences in Seaside Park is not a flood map at all — it is fire history. The September 12, 2013 ten-alarm boardwalk fire, believed to have started around 2:05 p.m. Eastern time, originated beneath a building housing Kohr's Frozen Custard and Biscayne Candies on Seaside Park's own end of the boardwalk before spreading north into Seaside Heights. The cause was electrical wiring under the boardwalk and subfloor that had been compromised by Hurricane Sandy's floodwaters roughly ten months earlier.
That fire destroyed the Funtown Pier amusement park and more than 50 businesses along the boardwalk, some of which had only recently reopened after Sandy repairs. More than 400 firefighters from multiple counties responded, demolishing roughly 25 feet of boardwalk near Lincoln Avenue to create a firebreak and drawing water from Barnegat Bay after Sandy-damaged water-supply pipes hampered normal firefighting; the blaze was brought under control by about 7:45 p.m. that evening. Reported cleanup and demolition costs came to $4.7 million, though no single combined property-damage total beyond that figure was found, and none is invented here. The boardwalk reopened for the 2014 summer season, but Funtown Pier's planned rebuild was scrapped in July 2016 due to planning-board height restrictions. This is not a flood-zone map, but it is real, sourced evidence that flood damage to this borough's infrastructure had consequences that outlasted the storm itself by nearly a year.
Southern Gateway to Island Beach State Park
Seaside Park sits at the southern end of the developed Barnegat Peninsula, immediately adjacent to Island Beach State Park, one of the last largely undeveloped barrier-island stretches on the entire Jersey Shore. Route 35, the peninsula's main road, runs south through the borough and dead-ends into the state park just beyond it. No single sourced reference confirms an exact shared-border distance between the two, so this should be read as general geographic context rather than a precise boundary figure, but the adjacency itself is well-established public geography.
That neighboring undeveloped land is worth knowing about for reasons beyond scenery. A barrier peninsula's exposure to ocean-side storm surge and bay-side flooding does not stop at a municipal line, and a stretch of coastline left largely unbuilt immediately to the south is part of the same physical system that shapes flood risk in Seaside Park itself, even without a specific flood-zone figure attached to that relationship.
Distinguishing Seaside Park From Neighboring Seaside Heights
Seaside Park and Seaside Heights share a boardwalk boundary and sit on the same barrier peninsula, and it is easy to conflate the two in a quick search. But they are separately incorporated boroughs with their own governments and their own histories, and this page covers only Seaside Park's own documented flood-related facts. Seaside Heights is the nightlife-and-amusement town to the north; Seaside Park is the quieter, more residential "Family Resort" neighbor where the 2013 fire actually began, before it spread north into Seaside Heights' section of the boardwalk.
A buyer researching property in Seaside Park should not assume any flood-zone figure, base flood elevation, or Sandy-damage detail documented for Seaside Heights, or for any Long Beach Island market built earlier in this site's New Jersey coverage, applies address-for-address here. Each of these boroughs has its own incorporation history, its own geography, and — where confirmed — its own flood-zone determination, and none of those figures are restated or assumed on this page.
What to Actually Check Before Buying
Given the gap between what is documented and what a buyer actually needs, here is the honest starting point. Confirmed: Seaside Park is a 0.81-square-mile borough (0.66 square miles land, 0.16 square miles water, 19.51 percent water) on the Barnegat Peninsula, immediately adjacent to Island Beach State Park to its south; it was the origin point of the September 12, 2013 ten-alarm boardwalk fire, caused by Hurricane Sandy floodwater damage to electrical wiring beneath the boardwalk. Not confirmed, and not invented on this page: any specific current FEMA flood zone letter, base flood elevation, Community Rating System discount, or flood-insurance premium for any address in the borough.
Before making an offer on a specific property, pull the current flood zone and base flood elevation from FEMA's Flood Map Service Center using the exact address, ask the seller or listing agent for any elevation certificate on file, and get a real flood-insurance quote from a licensed agent rather than estimating one from a neighboring town's rate. Confirm any building-elevation or freeboard requirement with the Borough of Seaside Park's own construction office, since local rules can be stricter than the federal minimum. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data drawn from research on Seaside Park, New Jersey, including its total area of 0.81 square miles (0.66 square miles land, 0.16 square miles water, water equal to 19.51 percent of total area) on the Barnegat Peninsula, immediately adjacent to Island Beach State Park to its south; and the September 12, 2013 ten-alarm boardwalk fire, which originated on Seaside Park's own end of the boardwalk in electrical wiring damaged by Hurricane Sandy's floodwaters, destroyed the Funtown Pier and more than 50 boardwalk businesses, and required an estimated $4.7 million in cleanup and demolition costs. Seaside Park is this site's twentieth New Jersey market, built immediately after its neighbor Seaside Heights, with which it shares a boardwalk boundary but not a flood-zone determination. No current FEMA flood zone designation, base flood elevation, Community Rating System classification, or flood-insurance premium for Seaside Park was independently confirmed during this research pass, and none is invented here. Get the current, address-specific flood zone determination from FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, confirm any elevation certificate and building-elevation requirement with the Borough of Seaside Park's own construction office, and get a current insurance quote from a licensed agent before making any purchase or insurance decision. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice.