Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Black Hawk, IA

Iowa · pop. 131,044 · FIPS 19013

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Drought
dominant hazard
$42M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Black Hawk $42M

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 Low 76.59/100
national median ~50 higher than 77% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 23.41/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 94.56/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Black Hawk

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,472 flood-insurance claims totaling $27.3M in Black Hawk since 1978. The costliest year was 2008 ($17.4M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $5,881 paid 1979: $103,404 paid 1980: $50,089 paid 1981: $0 paid 1982: $775 paid 1983: $1,284 paid 1984: $3,675 paid 1985: $1,441 paid 1986: $2,226 paid 1990: $61,826 paid 1991: $62,295 paid 1993: $1,078,204 paid 1998: $606 paid 1999: $1,988,168 paid 2000: $181,949 paid 2001: $39,979 paid 2004: $316,907 paid 2005: $1,567 paid 2007: $16,213 paid 2008: $17,443,057 paid 2009: $985 paid 2010: $128,317 paid 2013: $357,466 paid 2014: $230,398 paid 2016: $4,929,378 paid 2018: $124,357 paid 2019: $146,519 paid 2020: $55,009 paid 2008 · $17.4M 1978 2020
$27.3M
total paid
$18,568
average claim
$473K
largest single claim
82%
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 Black Hawk, IA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Black Hawk 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.