Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Nicholas, KY

Kentucky · pop. 7,537 · FIPS 21181

Very Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Landslide
dominant hazard
$4M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Nicholas $4M

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 18.99/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery High 95.45/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 52.42/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (52nd percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Nicholas

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 48 flood-insurance claims totaling $1.9M in Nicholas since 1979. The costliest year was 2021 ($1.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $20,729 paid 1983: $9,390 paid 1984: $28,651 paid 1986: $22,243 paid 1987: $22,014 paid 1991: $40,716 paid 1992: $48,361 paid 1993: $29,854 paid 1995: $15,074 paid 1997: $93,990 paid 1998: $11,293 paid 2002: $6,835 paid 2003: $10,198 paid 2008: $7,993 paid 2010: $40,045 paid 2011: $5,638 paid 2017: $5,118 paid 2019: $0 paid 2020: $35,397 paid 2021: $1,320,741 paid 2023: $76,861 paid 2021 · $1.3M 1979 2023
$1.9M
total paid
$38,565
average claim
$1.0M
largest single claim
48%
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 Nicholas, KY and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Nicholas 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.