Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Santa Clara, CA

California · pop. 1,934,625 · FIPS 06085

Very High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Earthquake
dominant hazard
$2.0B
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Santa Clara $2.0B

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 99.75/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 17.24/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively High 72.61/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (73rd percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Santa Clara

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,630 flood-insurance claims totaling $24.6M in Santa Clara since 1978. The costliest year was 1998 ($9.5M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $10,265 paid 1979: $9,196 paid 1980: $20,999 paid 1981: $16,620 paid 1982: $145,873 paid 1983: $1,700,051 paid 1984: $0 paid 1985: $0 paid 1986: $253,201 paid 1987: $0 paid 1989: $0 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $0 paid 1992: $12,569 paid 1993: $71,843 paid 1994: $2,176 paid 1995: $1,365,623 paid 1996: $187,884 paid 1997: $898,683 paid 1998: $9,513,221 paid 1999: $0 paid 2000: $109,750 paid 2001: $0 paid 2002: $82,591 paid 2003: $22,514 paid 2004: $11,986 paid 2005: $206,592 paid 2006: $33,309 paid 2007: $0 paid 2008: $70,711 paid 2009: $386,190 paid 2010: $20,887 paid 2011: $39,477 paid 2012: $293,368 paid 2013: $0 paid 2014: $505,137 paid 2016: $1,921 paid 2017: $7,452,361 paid 2018: $0 paid 2019: $62,014 paid 2020: $0 paid 2021: $0 paid 2022: $459,312 paid 2023: $627,625 paid 2024: $14,786 paid 2025: $0 paid 1998 · $9.5M 1978 2025
$24.6M
total paid
$15,097
average claim
$338K
largest single claim
75%
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 Santa Clara, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Santa Clara 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.