Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Butler, IA

Iowa · pop. 14,334 · FIPS 19023

Very Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Drought
dominant hazard
$15M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Butler $15M

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 Low 27.1/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (27th percentile)
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 10.62/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 89.41/100
national median ~50 higher than 89% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Butler

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 316 flood-insurance claims totaling $7.4M in Butler since 1979. The costliest year was 2008 ($4.6M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $831 paid 1991: $67,517 paid 1993: $80,727 paid 1997: $6,188 paid 1998: $2,520 paid 1999: $124,521 paid 2004: $3,232 paid 2005: $769 paid 2007: $23,774 paid 2008: $4,624,774 paid 2010: $39,054 paid 2013: $226,499 paid 2014: $5,228 paid 2016: $2,174,848 paid 2018: $39,694 paid 2024: $8,782 paid 2025: $1,374 paid 2008 · $4.6M 1979 2025
$7.4M
total paid
$23,514
average claim
$192K
largest single claim
81%
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 Butler, IA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Butler 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.