Stonington Borough CT Flood Zones: What to Know

A Peninsula That Is Roughly Half Water

Stonington Borough occupies about 0.7 square miles in total, and by the best available accounting, only around 0.3 square miles of that is land -- the rest is water. The Borough is a peninsula jutting into Fishers Island Sound and Little Narragansett Bay, with Stonington Harbor along its inner side. That is not a minor geographic footnote for flood purposes: a place where water makes up roughly half the mapped area, on three sides of a small landmass, is a place where flood exposure is a structural feature of the location, not an edge case.

Downtown is compact and walkable, laid out along Water Street (the main commercial street) and Main Street (running parallel to it), with Pearl Street leading down to the town docks. Stonington Point, at the Borough's southernmost tip, is the most exposed piece of ground on the peninsula -- it faces open water on multiple sides where Fishers Island Sound and Little Narragansett Bay meet.

Where the Water Comes From: The Pawcatuck River and Little Narragansett Bay

Little Narragansett Bay, on the Borough's eastern side, is formed by the Pawcatuck River, which also marks the Connecticut-Rhode Island state line -- a boundary ratified by survey in 1840. The bay is partly sheltered by Napatree Point, a barrier peninsula that sits across the state line in Watch Hill, Rhode Island -- not in Stonington Borough, Connecticut. That distinction matters for anyone reading general regional storm history, because a lot of the most dramatic storm-surge accounts from this stretch of coastline are actually Rhode Island accounts, not Connecticut ones, even though they describe the same body of water the Borough sits on.

The 1938 Hurricane: Real Regional History, Not Borough-Specific Damage

The 1938 Great New England Hurricane is the storm every regional flood conversation on this coastline eventually circles back to. Per a Patch retrospective, it produced a peak storm surge of roughly 50 feet and struck hardest "on the Connecticut-Rhode Island border in the Stonington-Watch Hill area." The most-cited destruction from that storm -- roughly 40 houses obliterated on Fort Road at Napatree Point -- happened in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, across the state line, not in Stonington Borough, Connecticut. Nobody has been allowed to rebuild on that stretch of Fort Road since 1938. One striking account describes a house belonging to a New London-area family detaching from its foundation on Fort Road and riding the storm surge roughly two miles inland into a Stonington cornfield.

That story is worth knowing because it shows how far storm surge from this same regional weather system traveled -- but it is regional context, not a documented Stonington Borough damage figure. No Borough-specific 1938 damage count was found in the research behind this page, and none is claimed here. Treat the 1938 hurricane as evidence of what this stretch of coast is capable of producing, sourced from the immediately adjacent Rhode Island shoreline, rather than as a Borough-specific record.

Hurricane Irene, 2011: The Closest Borough-Specific Storm Data Point

The best documented Borough-specific storm account available is Hurricane Irene, which struck on August 27, 2011. Per Patch reporting, Stonington Borough residents boarded windows with plywood, placed sandbags in doorways, and a mandatory evacuation was ordered to take effect by 6 p.m. that day. Roughly 21 houses were boarded up in preparation, and nearly 40 boats were hauled out of the water ahead of the storm.

It is important to be precise about what that data point does and does not show: it is preparation reporting -- what residents and the Borough did ahead of Irene's arrival -- not a confirmed record of post-storm flood damage or water levels reached. No Stonington Borough-specific damage figures for Irene, and no Borough-specific figures at all for Hurricane Sandy (2012) or Hurricane Gloria (1985), were found in the research behind this page. Rather than fill those gaps with invented numbers, this page leaves them open: if you need actual storm-surge elevations or damage history for a specific property, that is exactly the kind of detail a FEMA flood determination or a local flood-history request can supply, and a generic content page cannot.

No Specific Flood-Zone Designation Is Given Here -- Use the FEMA Map Service Center

This page will not tell you whether a given Water Street, Main Street, or Stonington Point address falls in FEMA Zone AE, Zone VE, or any other flood-zone designation. No current, Borough-specific FEMA flood-zone designation for any particular street or parcel was confirmed in the research behind this page, and a general real-estate content page is the wrong place to guess at one -- flood-zone lines are drawn parcel by parcel on official FEMA flood insurance rate maps, and they can differ meaningfully from one side of a street to the other.

For an actual flood-zone determination on a specific address, go directly to FEMA's Map Service Center (msc.fema.gov), where you can look up the current effective flood insurance rate map for any Stonington Borough parcel. That is the only source that should be treated as authoritative for a specific property, and it is the source any lender, insurer, or title company will ultimately rely on as well.

Two Governments, One Small Borough: Why That Matters for Floodplain Compliance

Stonington Borough maintains its own Planning & Zoning Commission and its own zoning regulations, separate from the Town of Stonington's. For a place this small -- 976 residents inside a town of over 18,000 -- that separation is easy for an outside buyer to miss, but it is directly relevant to floodplain questions: depending on the parcel, floodplain compliance, building elevation requirements, and permitting may run through the Borough's own commission rather than the Town's planning department, or in some cases both may be relevant. Confirm which entity's regulations actually govern floodplain compliance for a specific Borough parcel before assuming either one automatically applies.

As of this writing, the Borough's Warden is Michael Schefers, and its Clerk-Treasurer and Assessor is Lisa Coleman -- useful starting points if you need to be directed to the correct floodplain administrator or zoning contact for a specific question.

What This Means If You Are Evaluating a Borough Property

Put together honestly, the picture is this: Stonington Borough is a small peninsula where water makes up roughly half the total area, bordered by Fishers Island Sound, Little Narragansett Bay, and Stonington Harbor, sitting immediately adjacent to a stretch of coastline with a documented history of severe regional storm surge. The most dramatic single storm event associated with this area -- the 1938 hurricane's destruction at Napatree Point -- happened just across the state line in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, not in the Borough itself. The closest genuine Borough-specific storm data point is the preparation record from Hurricane Irene in 2011: plywood, sandbags, a mandatory evacuation, roughly 21 houses boarded up, and nearly 40 boats hauled out.

None of that adds up to a flood-zone designation, and this page does not supply one. For that, go to FEMA's Map Service Center for the parcel in question, and confirm with the Borough's own Planning & Zoning Commission (as distinct from the Town of Stonington's) which regulations govern floodplain compliance for that specific property. This page is independent research meant to orient a buyer to the real geography and the real, verifiable storm history -- it is not, and is not a substitute for, an official FEMA flood determination, a survey, or professional guidance from a floodplain administrator, insurer, or attorney.