Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Butte, CA

California · pop. 211,490 · FIPS 06007

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Drought
dominant hazard
$127M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (39th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Butte $127M

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 93.92/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 59.03/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (59th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 60.4/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (60th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Butte

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 335 flood-insurance claims totaling $7.2M in Butte since 1983. The costliest year was 1997 ($1.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1983: $47,334 paid 1986: $196,485 paid 1989: $0 paid 1992: $3,637 paid 1993: $11,661 paid 1995: $634,877 paid 1996: $509,527 paid 1997: $1,277,754 paid 1998: $825,718 paid 2000: $3,415 paid 2001: $0 paid 2002: $13,732 paid 2003: $13,281 paid 2004: $2,448 paid 2005: $149,398 paid 2006: $138,539 paid 2008: $0 paid 2010: $0 paid 2012: $290,657 paid 2014: $434,384 paid 2016: $100,166 paid 2017: $43,145 paid 2018: $333,522 paid 2019: $1,002,777 paid 2024: $381,647 paid 2025: $786,684 paid 1997 · $1.3M 1983 2025
$7.2M
total paid
$21,495
average claim
$257K
largest single claim
65%
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 Butte, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Butte 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.