Water Damage Hackensack NJ Homes Face Neighborhood by Neighborhood

The Hackensack River forms the city's eastern edge, and it's tidal: water levels rise and fall with the ocean, well upstream of Newark Bay. Foschini Park, Johnson Park and Hackensack River County Park sit on the low ground beside it, and River Street runs just inland. When a heavy rain arrives at high tide, the river and the storm drains feeding it back up, and the streets nearest the water feel it first. If you live on the east side, Hackensack flood cleanup after a big storm is the most likely call you'll ever make. See storm and flood damage.

The river isn't the only water source. Coles Brook and Van Saun Mill Brook run through the Johnson Avenue area, and small brooks can overflow in a summer cloudburst long before the river rises. The city's 2022 Open Space and Recreation Plan counts 63 Hackensack properties on the federal Repetitive Loss or Severe Repetitive Loss lists, mostly in about 14 acres around Johnson Avenue. Those are homes that have had flood claims again and again.

West of the rail line, parts of the city still run on combined sewers, where street runoff and household wastewater share one pipe. In a downpour the pipe fills and sewage can come back up basement floor drains. The city's May 2026 notice named the Anderson Street drainage area, including Clay Street, Railroad Avenue, Berdan Place, James Street, Berry Street and Stanley Place, for new pipe and culverts. Until that work reaches your block, Hackensack sewage cleanup calls from these streets tend to follow heavy rain. See sewage cleanup.

Prospect Avenue, home to Hackensack University Medical Center, is lined with mid-rise and high-rise apartment and condo buildings. Here the ground floor rarely floods. The problem is gravity: a leak in one unit runs down into the ones below. Supers, condo boards and several insurance policies get involved fast. See water damage restoration.

Since the city created its Downtown Rehabilitation Zone in 2012, new apartment buildings like Ora at 321 Main Street and the Print House project on the old Bergen Record site have added thousands of units. New buildings have new plumbing, but also sprinkler lines, garages below street level and dozens of units stacked over each other. A single failure can reach many apartments.

In the Fairmount section and the city's other single-family neighborhoods, the typical house is older, often with a block foundation and a finished basement. The water comes from the ground: seepage at the floor joint, a sump that quits, a musty basement in August. Hackensack basement waterproofing questions come mostly from these streets. See basement waterproofing.

On July 27 and 28, 2026, CBS New York reported that Temple Avenue "looked more like a waterway as multiple vehicles got trapped in high waters." It's a reminder that flash flooding can hit streets that aren't next to the river.