Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Barnstable, MA

Massachusetts · pop. 228,870 · FIPS 25001

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Coastal Flooding
dominant hazard
$82M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (25th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Barnstable $82M

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 Moderate 89.09/100
national median ~50 higher than 89% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 34.45/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (34th percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 99.3/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Barnstable

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 3,183 flood-insurance claims totaling $42.8M in Barnstable since 1978. The costliest year was 1991 ($19.9M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $197,030 paid 1979: $41,020 paid 1980: $3,282 paid 1981: $7,011 paid 1982: $5,169 paid 1983: $36,588 paid 1984: $32,951 paid 1985: $41,140 paid 1986: $758 paid 1987: $657,715 paid 1988: $525,426 paid 1989: $18,048 paid 1990: $665,689 paid 1991: $19,932,590 paid 1992: $779,381 paid 1993: $346,827 paid 1994: $48,321 paid 1995: $2,986 paid 1996: $316,203 paid 1997: $123,263 paid 1998: $196,612 paid 1999: $20,400 paid 2000: $21,936 paid 2001: $11,315 paid 2002: $122,256 paid 2003: $30,886 paid 2004: $15,216 paid 2005: $572,389 paid 2006: $312,065 paid 2007: $372,495 paid 2008: $135,033 paid 2009: $287,963 paid 2010: $596,867 paid 2011: $71,374 paid 2012: $734,761 paid 2013: $505,380 paid 2014: $9,730 paid 2015: $929,680 paid 2016: $43,061 paid 2017: $356,685 paid 2018: $8,809,858 paid 2019: $317,368 paid 2020: $27,681 paid 2021: $359,640 paid 2022: $2,452,943 paid 2023: $1,012,081 paid 2024: $658,519 paid 2025: $17,433 paid 2026: $458 paid 1991 · $19.9M 1978 2026
$42.8M
total paid
$13,441
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
78%
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 Barnstable, MA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Barnstable 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.