Shark Spotted Swimming Through Flooded New Jersey Streets
A powerful nor’easter pounded the East Coast over the weekend, bringing strong winds and coastal flooding along with it. And while the headlines have mostly been about the damage caused by the storm, another video is making the rounds.
Homeowners in New Jersey say they caught video of the floodwaters. But it wasn’t how high sea levels had risen that made them whip out their phone, but instead what they claim to have spotted swimming in them.
TikToker @hoagiepoker shared a short video that appeared to show a small shark swimming in Atlantic City. Meanwhile, a man named Drew Procaccino shared his video with Storyful, which was later shared by ABC News.
In the clip, a shark appears to swim quickly through the street, and its dorsal fin and tail even breached the surface a few times. ABC News says it later spoke with a shark researcher, who agreed that the creature was indeed a shark.
A Shark Was Spotted in Surf City, New Jersey
A small shark was spotted swimming through a flooded residential street in Surf City, New Jersey, as a nor’easter brought coastal flooding to the Jersey Shore on Saturday, September 26.
Footage captured by Drew Procaccino shows the shark’s fin cutting through floodwater.… pic.twitter.com/IT48HfdMDg
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) September 28, 2026
While it sounds like there were multiple sharks spotted during the Sept. 26 storm, one video has been confirmed to include footage of a dogfish shark. ABC News says that Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark researcher with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, was able to confirm that the creature was a smooth dogfish.
According to Procaccino, the shark swam past his home around 12 p.m., swimming up his driveway at one point before heading toward Barnegat Bay. “At first we thought it was just a fish, which would have been cool, but a baby shark was even better,” he told Storyful.
Other Shark Videos Have Gone Viral
TikToker @hoagiepoker’s unverified video of a shark in Atlantic City also went viral, and people quickly started joking about the unusual situation. “Sorry, but your home and auto insurance bundle doesn’t cover shark,” one person joked.
“You’re gonna need a bigger house,” another person said in a play on the famous line from the movie Jaws.
“Is this like a normal thing that happens in Atlantic City,” another person asked, prompting several responses about how unusual the situation was.
Similar Videos Have Been Faked in the Past
While multiple outlets have covered the shark from this weekend’s floods, past stories have mostly been proven to be fake. According to the BBC, a picture of a shark swimming down a road that went viral in 2011 was the result of the clever editing of a photo of a great white shark.
A 2025 video of a shark swimming near buildings in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa was proven to be made using AI, according to AFP Fact Check.
That being said, it seems like these videos of the small dogfish shark from this weekend’s storms appear to be real. Hopefully the animal made it back to open water before the floodwaters began to subside.
