If you are building in a Special Flood Hazard Area, a Flood Elevation Certificate completed by a licensed surveyor or engineer to ensure your project is properly elevated out of the base flood elevation.  You may also be required to obtain a Flood Elevation Certificate either by your mortgage company or your insurance company.

Accomack County does not receive every elevation certificate completed in the County, only those that are required as part of the building permit process. If you are looking for an elevation certificate and have not recently had a construction project completed, contact the surveyor or engineer who completed the Flood Elevation Certificate or your mortgage company or your insurance company for a duplicate copy. 

Since the 1990s, the County has endeavored to maintain copies of all completed Flood Elevation Certificates we have received. Currently, the County makes recent certificates available online via AccoMap, Accomack's Interactive Mapping Site.  Digital copies of Certificates can be downloaded. Additional Elevation Certificates are being added regularly, as they are located in the old paper files.

In order to determine if an Elevation Certificate is available on AccoMap, follow the link and enter the site. Check the disclaimer box and enter the site. You do not need a login or password to access the site. Locate the property by searching on either the parcel tab or the 911 address tab. When you go to the map tab, check the box for Flood Elevation Certificates under FEMA Flood Data. If there is a red house icon on the property, there is a digital copy of the Elevation Certificate for downloading. In the screenshot below, there are two Elevation Certificates available for downloading.

To view the Elevation Certificate, press the Tools Button and select the Identify Option. Select the Custom Shape option and draw a shape around the red house indicating the Elevation Certificate you want to select. Double-click to finish drawing the shape. A results tab will open up on the left portion of the screen. Select the one labelled Flood Elevation Certificates and press the orange highlight for more info. Once the section has expanded, press the orange Open Link to view or download a copy of the elevation certificate that is on file.

If you think Accomack County should already have a copy of your Elevation Certificate and you are attempting to locate a copy and it is not available via AccoMap, please contact Tom Brockenbrough at the Department of Building, Planning & Community Development, either via email or phone (757.787.5797), to determine if the County has a copy available. If you have a copy of an Elevation Certificate for any site in Accomack County you would like to have the County host on AccoMap, please send a digital copy via email to Tom. In order for the Certificate to be hosted on the site, it must be noted that it is based on finished construction.

Please note there have been multiple revisions to Flood Insurance Rate maps and the method of measuring elevation for Accomack County was revised in 2015. As a result, your flood zone determination as well as your elevations may have changed from what is shown on your Elevation Certificate. The previous elevations on older flood maps and flood elevation certificates were referenced to the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29). Beginning with the May 2015 Flood Maps and Flood Insurance study, the elevation has been changed to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88). 

The Flood Insurance Study for Accomack County indicates that the vertical datum conversion factor from NGVD 29 to NAVD 88 for Accomack County is -0.81 feet.  Elevation values on Flood Elevation Certificates completed using NGVD 29 must have 0.81 feet subtracted from the NGVD 29 value to determine what the elevation would be under NAVD 88. An example is shown to the right.

FEMA has a fillable version of the Elevation Certificate (FEMA Form 086-0-33) available on the FEMA website at https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/160. The PDF form has been enabled to be filled and saved using Adobe Reader.

Accomack County does not issue building permits within the incorporated Town of Chincoteague. Those wishing for copies of elevation certificates for Chincoteague may wish to contact the Chincoteague Building and Zoning Department at 757-336-6519.