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Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Program in New Jersey

  • Program Overview
  • NJ Municipalities Served Through FMA
  • NJ Municipalities Served - Special Projects
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    The Flood Mitigation Assistance Program (FMA) is administered by the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM).  The Program provides funding for interested municipalities to reduce flood damages to their repetitive flood loss structures.  Repetitive flood loss structures are those where there have been two or more claims against the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).  Repetitive flood losses from approximately 48,000 out of 2.2 million policyholders account for 50 percent or more of the annual claims.  In June 2004, the National Flood Insurance Reform Act targeted these repetitive flood loss structures to:

    • To help people who have experienced serious and repetitive flood damage to solve their problems with financial assistance from the National Flood Insurance Program in partnership with communities and states;
    • To end abuses by those who misuse the Program causing all policyholders to pay more for flood insurance; and
    • To improve consumer understanding and rights of NFIP policyholders.

    FMA provides funding for development and implementation of flood mitigation plans.  Funding covers up to 75 percent of the cost of development and implementation of the plans.  Implementation measures may include elevating structures, relocating structures or buying out and removing structures from the flood zone.

    The flood mitigation planning process is directed by a locally led committee made up of municipal officials, including local emergency management coordinator, engineer, planner and others, as well as flood-impacted property owners.  The process uses NRCS interdisciplinary expertise in engineering, soils, biology, geology and other disciplines and in facilitating with locally-led committees to  produce a plan for solving the repetitive flood loss problem and includes: 

    • Committee organization
    • Public Involvement
    • Coordination with other agencies
    • Assessing the hazard
    • Assessing the problem
    • Setting goals
    • Review of possible activities
    • Implementation of an action plan
    • Plan adoption by the governing body
    • Plan monitoring and evaluation

    For further information check out this website: REDUCING RISK FROM NATURAL HAZARDS - THE NJOEM MITIGATION PROGRAM (NJ Office of Emergency Management)

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    Last Modified: April 06, 2007