Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Sonoma, CA

California · pop. 488,330 · FIPS 06097

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Landslide
dominant hazard
$605M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Sonoma $605M

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 99.08/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 29.77/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (30th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 66.22/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (66th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Sonoma

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 7,402 flood-insurance claims totaling $132.1M in Sonoma since 1978. The costliest year was 1995 ($36.0M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $640,990 paid 1979: $34,106 paid 1980: $391,991 paid 1981: $1,128,846 paid 1982: $2,003,185 paid 1983: $2,362,563 paid 1984: $10,269 paid 1985: $33,483 paid 1986: $16,386,350 paid 1987: $12,939 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $2,108 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $120,262 paid 1992: $9,513 paid 1993: $519,495 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $35,966,827 paid 1996: $2,436,506 paid 1997: $9,234,422 paid 1998: $3,516,242 paid 1999: $55,644 paid 2000: $37,825 paid 2001: $82,790 paid 2002: $532,380 paid 2003: $37,510 paid 2004: $394,464 paid 2005: $17,568,542 paid 2006: $4,019,743 paid 2007: $927 paid 2008: $769,332 paid 2010: $31,078 paid 2011: $995 paid 2012: $103,492 paid 2014: $419,893 paid 2015: $6,293 paid 2016: $5,821 paid 2017: $2,121,309 paid 2018: $157,378 paid 2019: $29,133,280 paid 2021: $137,251 paid 2022: $11,394 paid 2023: $229,405 paid 2024: $353,099 paid 2025: $1,015,480 paid 2026: $38,653 paid 1995 · $36.0M 1978 2026
$132.1M
total paid
$17,843
average claim
$545K
largest single claim
84%
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 Sonoma, CA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Sonoma 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.