Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Etowah, AL

Alabama · pop. 103,320 · FIPS 01055

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Tornado
dominant hazard
$50M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Etowah $50M

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 Moderate 87.34/100
national median ~50 higher than 87% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 77.99/100
national median ~50 higher than 78% of counties
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 57.57/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (58th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Etowah

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 129 flood-insurance claims totaling $815K in Etowah since 1979. The costliest year was 2004 ($231K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $111,627 paid 1980: $18,013 paid 1982: $16,712 paid 1983: $9,799 paid 1984: $8,104 paid 1985: $8,908 paid 1989: $5,036 paid 1990: $37,258 paid 1991: $0 paid 1995: $695 paid 1996: $7,729 paid 1997: $58,003 paid 1999: $24,783 paid 2000: $12,663 paid 2001: $3,003 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $3,137 paid 2004: $230,819 paid 2005: $47,111 paid 2009: $7,144 paid 2010: $1,298 paid 2011: $924 paid 2012: $12,644 paid 2013: $7,132 paid 2014: $0 paid 2015: $28,624 paid 2016: $0 paid 2017: $3,753 paid 2018: $2,572 paid 2019: $6,591 paid 2020: $75,000 paid 2021: $39,575 paid 2022: $26,402 paid 2024: $0 paid 2004 · $231K 1979 2024
$815K
total paid
$6,318
average claim
$75K
largest single claim
54%
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 Etowah, AL and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Etowah 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.