Property Atlas

County hazard profile

District of Columbia, DC

District of Columbia · pop. 688,888 · FIPS 11001

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Heat Wave
dominant hazard
$292M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr District of Columbia $292M

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 97.58/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 40.94/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (41st percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 93.29/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in District of Columbia

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 494 flood-insurance claims totaling $5.5M in District of Columbia since 1978. The costliest year was 2011 ($1.6M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $33,467 paid 1979: $86,952 paid 1980: $26,337 paid 1981: $757 paid 1983: $4,670 paid 1984: $10,804 paid 1985: $72,851 paid 1986: $0 paid 1987: $0 paid 1993: $17,662 paid 1996: $482,435 paid 1997: $0 paid 1998: $750 paid 1999: $4,788 paid 2000: $0 paid 2001: $1,156 paid 2003: $309,075 paid 2004: $6,733 paid 2005: $1,205 paid 2006: $539,045 paid 2008: $60,508 paid 2009: $8,216 paid 2010: $36,711 paid 2011: $1,644,463 paid 2012: $95,004 paid 2013: $26,078 paid 2014: $25,187 paid 2015: $9,704 paid 2016: $14,793 paid 2017: $304,200 paid 2018: $202,381 paid 2019: $36,997 paid 2020: $572,389 paid 2021: $109,293 paid 2022: $26,357 paid 2023: $723,536 paid 2024: $3,224 paid 2025: $38,557 paid 2026: $0 paid 2011 · $1.6M 1978 2026
$5.5M
total paid
$11,207
average claim
$700K
largest single claim
14%
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 District of Columbia, DC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether District of Columbia 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.