Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Lafayette, LA

Louisiana · pop. 241,618 · FIPS 22055

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Lightning
dominant hazard
$190M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (59th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Lafayette $190M

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 95.17/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 32.44/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (32nd percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 72.84/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (73rd percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Lafayette

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 6,579 flood-insurance claims totaling $266.6M in Lafayette since 1978. The costliest year was 2016 ($194.6M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $93,568 paid 1979: $316,449 paid 1980: $2,763,924 paid 1981: $45,825 paid 1982: $130,668 paid 1983: $54,030 paid 1984: $303,816 paid 1985: $225,798 paid 1986: $17,480 paid 1987: $29,620 paid 1988: $50,752 paid 1989: $802,334 paid 1990: $15,176 paid 1991: $500,261 paid 1992: $132,943 paid 1993: $5,195,597 paid 1994: $24,984 paid 1995: $2,744,419 paid 1996: $67,472 paid 1997: $81,163 paid 1998: $929,009 paid 1999: $206,759 paid 2000: $3,621 paid 2001: $4,667,367 paid 2002: $337,346 paid 2003: $8,996 paid 2004: $1,906,613 paid 2005: $1,404,671 paid 2006: $863,728 paid 2007: $6,462 paid 2008: $888,650 paid 2009: $13,481 paid 2010: $97,551 paid 2011: $18,400 paid 2012: $10,112,232 paid 2013: $229,138 paid 2014: $924,310 paid 2015: $58,981 paid 2016: $194,575,596 paid 2017: $4,126,651 paid 2018: $6,973 paid 2019: $5,419,207 paid 2020: $2,023,446 paid 2021: $6,586,155 paid 2022: $142,210 paid 2023: $78,790 paid 2024: $1,141,053 paid 2025: $16,272,034 paid 2026: $0 paid 2016 · $194.6M 1978 2026
$266.6M
total paid
$40,530
average claim
$705K
largest single claim
54%
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 Lafayette, LA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Lafayette 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.