Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Merced, CA

California · pop. 281,054 · FIPS 06047

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Drought
dominant hazard
$205M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (63rd percentile)

national median $15M/yr Merced $205M

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 High 96.85/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 61.74/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (62nd percentile)
Community resilienceVery Low 7.25/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Merced

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 499 flood-insurance claims totaling $14.5M in Merced since 1980. The costliest year was 2023 ($9.9M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1980: $1,740 paid 1982: $4,990 paid 1983: $628 paid 1984: $10,822 paid 1986: $0 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $70,544 paid 1996: $3,382 paid 1997: $22,857 paid 1998: $1,676,831 paid 1999: $0 paid 2000: $0 paid 2001: $0 paid 2002: $0 paid 2004: $0 paid 2005: $56,413 paid 2006: $2,390,329 paid 2007: $1,918 paid 2008: $6,884 paid 2010: $2,569 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $0 paid 2014: $3,593 paid 2016: $8,059 paid 2017: $105,657 paid 2018: $128,885 paid 2020: $0 paid 2021: $5,111 paid 2022: $36,481 paid 2023: $9,937,868 paid 2024: $10,652 paid 2025: $21,647 paid 2026: $6,516 paid 2023 · $9.9M 1980 2026
$14.5M
total paid
$29,087
average claim
$337K
largest single claim
96%
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 Merced, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Merced 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.