Property Atlas

County hazard profile

DeKalb, AL

Alabama · pop. 71,379 · FIPS 01049

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Strong Wind
dominant hazard
$32M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

Expected annual loss · all 3,232 U.S. counties

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr DeKalb $32M

A real dollar distribution: most counties sit far below a handful of high-exposure ones. A FEMA model of annual loss, not a record of disasters.

FEMA national percentile scores

FEMA/CDC score each county 0–100 against all others — the score is the national rank (RATING). Higher risk and vulnerability are worse; higher resilience is better.

FEMA risk indexRelatively Low 80.38/100
national median ~50 higher than 80% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 74.68/100
national median ~50 higher than 75% of counties
Community resilienceVery Low 13.45/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in DeKalb

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 40 flood-insurance claims totaling $1.0M in DeKalb since 1988. The costliest year was 2020 ($392K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1988: $660 paid 1992: $60,705 paid 1995: $113,863 paid 1997: $2,254 paid 1999: $4,161 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $128,087 paid 2007: $130,000 paid 2009: $0 paid 2011: $0 paid 2014: $192,359 paid 2015: $10,462 paid 2020: $391,932 paid 2021: $3,723 paid 2020 · $392K 1988 2021
$1.0M
total paid
$25,955
average claim
$279K
largest single claim
57%
in high-risk flood zones (A/V)

RECORDED — these are actual paid NFIP claims (a redacted census from OpenFEMA), not a model. They are the realized counterpart to the FEMA risk score above: one is what happened and got paid, the other is what a model predicts.

Scope: these are flood-insurance claims, so they undercount flooding where owners were uninsured — read this as "what NFIP paid here," not "every flood." County-level totals, not a per-property or per-address verdict. Verify a specific address and buy coverage at FloodSmart.gov; the underlying data is OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

What these figures mean

  • RATING — the FEMA risk score, expected loss, social vulnerability, and resilience are FEMA/CDC models, not records of disasters that happened. The 0–100 scores are already national percentiles.
  • MEASURED — population is a recorded census figure.
  • COMPUTED — the county's rank within the dollar-loss distribution is our placement over the 3,232 counties.
  • CONTEXT — the note below is framing, not a measurement.

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What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for DeKalb, AL and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether DeKalb is a good or bad place to live — hazard exposure is not place quality, and a county can't opt out of its geography. It is not a per-property or per-address risk assessment, not a prediction of any specific disaster, and not insurance advice. For site-specific risk use a per-property assessment; for the underlying model see FEMA National Risk Index.