Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Shelby, AL

Alabama · pop. 222,782 · FIPS 01117

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Tornado
dominant hazard
$106M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (33rd percentile)

national median $15M/yr Shelby $106M

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 90.27/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 16.57/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively High 74.01/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (74th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Shelby

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 797 flood-insurance claims totaling $19.2M in Shelby since 1979. The costliest year was 2021 ($9.6M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $409,226 paid 1980: $1,116 paid 1982: $0 paid 1983: $658,036 paid 1988: $3,982 paid 1990: $1,843,567 paid 1992: $13,124 paid 1993: $2,279 paid 1994: $5,179 paid 1995: $1,205 paid 1996: $508,619 paid 1997: $5,684 paid 1998: $60,743 paid 2000: $19,502 paid 2001: $74,183 paid 2002: $180,586 paid 2003: $923,399 paid 2004: $136,308 paid 2005: $294,141 paid 2006: $3,288 paid 2007: $0 paid 2009: $156,696 paid 2010: $340,419 paid 2011: $821 paid 2012: $741,645 paid 2013: $20,169 paid 2014: $2,163,009 paid 2015: $292,617 paid 2016: $2,880 paid 2017: $439,993 paid 2018: $89,914 paid 2019: $9,042 paid 2020: $60,623 paid 2021: $9,608,165 paid 2022: $62,531 paid 2024: $21,917 paid 2025: $40,083 paid 2021 · $9.6M 1979 2025
$19.2M
total paid
$24,084
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
61%
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 Shelby, AL and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Shelby 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.