Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Orange, CA

California · pop. 3,183,647 · FIPS 06059

Very High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Earthquake
dominant hazard
$1.9B
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Orange $1.9B

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 indexVery High 99.81/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 24.94/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (25th percentile)
Community resilienceVery Low 16.32/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Orange

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 3,830 flood-insurance claims totaling $21.1M in Orange since 1978. The costliest year was 1997 ($3.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $159,904 paid 1979: $65,297 paid 1980: $410,164 paid 1981: $48,263 paid 1982: $114,546 paid 1983: $2,030,815 paid 1984: $42,064 paid 1985: $410 paid 1986: $12,336 paid 1987: $12,552 paid 1988: $359,230 paid 1989: $2,078 paid 1990: $11,005 paid 1991: $62,665 paid 1992: $764,276 paid 1993: $87,172 paid 1994: $6,642 paid 1995: $2,614,105 paid 1996: $40,310 paid 1997: $3,201,391 paid 1998: $2,314,115 paid 1999: $12,724 paid 2000: $35,266 paid 2001: $173,756 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $125,019 paid 2004: $1,027,871 paid 2005: $773,731 paid 2006: $0 paid 2007: $0 paid 2008: $29,390 paid 2009: $11,134 paid 2010: $3,169,366 paid 2011: $1,977 paid 2012: $4,233 paid 2013: $0 paid 2014: $90,507 paid 2015: $347,397 paid 2016: $128,298 paid 2017: $528,469 paid 2018: $128,121 paid 2019: $217,690 paid 2020: $298,269 paid 2021: $199,742 paid 2022: $14,008 paid 2023: $609,159 paid 2024: $624,999 paid 2025: $193,660 paid 1997 · $3.2M 1978 2025
$21.1M
total paid
$5,510
average claim
$274K
largest single claim
51%
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 Orange, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Orange 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.