Welcome to the Electronic Storm Surge Atlas (ESSA)! This atlas is a product of the North Carolina Hurricane Evacuation Restudy, covering twenty-one coastal counties of North Carolina. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District, has the responsibility of study management, including technical direction, coordination, scheduling and overall quality control. Funding for the hurricane evacuation restudy was provided by the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Weather Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
HOW TO USE AND INTERPRET THE ATLAS:
The maps contained in this atlas reflect the worst case hurricane storm surge inundation (including astronomical high tide), regardless of the point of where the center of the hurricane (or tropical storm) makes landfall. No one hurricane will necessarily cause all of the flooding represented on the maps. It should be noted that the data reflect only still-water saltwater flooding and do not take into account the effects of pounding waves that ride on top of the storm surge in locations exposed to wave action. Also, these maps do not show areas that may be flooded by excessive rainfall.
These maps are intended to be used for emergency management and evacuation purposes and should not be used as a basis for permitting. Federal Emergency Management Agency Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM's) should be used for that purpose.
Look at the legend to the right:
The colors represent areas that would potentially be flooded by hurricane storm surge during the respective categories of hurricanes. So an area in blue would be flooded during a category one and two hurricane. The yellow color represents areas that would be flooded during a category three hurricane. Finally, the red coloring depicts areas that would be flooded by a category four or five hurricane. The base map color is a sort of beige coloring; indicating that no storm surge flooding is predicted.
Here is another example of the legend.
The surge maps do not show areas that may be flooded by excessive rainfall. These maps only depict flooding that would occur as a result of the ocean level rising (as well as estuaries and rivers that can be affected by hurricane storm surge) and inundating the color-coded areas.
Click on a county name from the list below to go to that county's set of storm surge inundation maps (fast and slow moving hurricanes).
The county surge maps are in PDF format. You will need Acrobat Reader to be able to access the maps. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, go to to get your free copy.
