Numbers behind the pages
Housing, weather and storm facts for five New Jersey towns
Every figure quoted in the guides and town notes comes from a public page, and the main ones are gathered here with their sources: Census housing counts, the 2026 storms, Newark's weather normals and the county hazard plans.
How many homes, and how old
In the Census Bureau's 2024 five-year estimates, Rahway has 13,002 homes (6,281 built before 1960), Linden 16,149 (9,142), Roselle 8,687 (5,203), Carteret 8,741 (4,344) and Iselin 6,738 (3,535). Expressed as shares, that is 48, 57, 60, 50 and 52 percent.
These are estimates with margins of error. The total for Rahway carries a margin of 505 homes, Linden 461, Roselle 373, Carteret 461 and Iselin 527. The 'before 1960' figures add three age groups, each with its own margin.
The median house, town by town
Median year built: Roselle 1955 (give or take 3 years), Linden 1957 (2), Iselin 1959 (3), Carteret 1960 (3) and Rahway 1962 (4).
Rahway reads youngest of the five mainly because 3,551 of its homes, about 27 percent, went up in 2000 or later. Roselle reads oldest, with about 32 percent of homes dating to 1939 or earlier.
Three 2026 storms in the federal record
January 25-26: 11.7 inches at Newark Airport and 9.6 in Linden, from a broadcast-media report. February 22-23: 27.2 inches at Newark Airport, 21.0 in Cranford, 20.0 in Westfield and 18.5 in Clark, with blizzard criteria met in Union County on February 23.
July 3: a gust of 71 mph at Newark Airport, 68 mph near Elizabeth and 58 mph at Linden Airport, with trees falling onto a house in Linden. The National Weather Service event pages carry no reports for Rahway, Roselle, Carteret or Iselin.
Newark's normals, month by month
Newark is the nearest long record, and its 1991-2020 normals from the National Weather Service give rainfall and snowfall in inches. January: 3.42 and 9.1. February: 2.98 and 10.1. March: 4.13 and 5.6. April: 3.87 and 0.5. July: 4.66. September: 3.82. October: 3.79 and 0.2. December: 4.14 and 5.4.
The four months of December through March add up to 30.2 inches of snow. Only the months listed here were opened, so the other four are not quoted.
What the hazard plans rank highest
Union County's 2016 plan ranks flood, straight-line wind and storm surge as High hazards for Rahway, and flood, winter storms, storm surge and two hazardous-materials categories as High for Linden. For Roselle, the High group is erosion and flood.
The Middlesex County emergency office says its hazard plan was updated in 2022, but the page opened lists no town annexes, so Carteret's and Iselin's rankings are not quoted here. The Rutgers study for the state covers Carteret's Arthur Kill flooding.
Who supplies the electricity
PSE&G's electric tariff lists Rahway, Linden and Roselle in Union County and Carteret and the Township of Woodbridge in Middlesex County as part of its electric territory. The sheets are dated June 2010.
PSE&G's downed-wire page asks readers to regard any downed wire as live and to phone 911 or 1-800-436-7734. It also warns against cutting a tree that is tangled in power lines. The page's body text gives 30 feet and its summary line says 300, so no distance is given here.
Ready when you are
Have the street address ready, along with what is visible from the ground and roughly how old the roof is. Renters: the landlord makes the roof decisions, so tell the landlord.