The river floods homes the flood map calls low-risk
Duval’s worst flooding does not come from a direct hit. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017 both put water in Jacksonville living rooms without making landfall anywhere near the county — surge pushed up the St. Johns, the river’s sluggish northward drainage had nowhere to go, and it backed up into Riverside, San Marco and downtown. During Irma the river crested at a record 5.57 feet at the Main Street gauge on 11 September 2017, and crews ran roughly 350 water rescues. The insurance lesson is blunt: a large share of those homes sat in low-risk flood zones where no lender required a policy. A homeowners policy never covers flood anywhere in Florida, and NFIP’s 30-day waiting period means it cannot be bought as a storm approaches — so the time to put it in place is now, not when a cone appears.
