Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Essex, MA

Massachusetts · pop. 808,897 · FIPS 25009

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Coastal Flooding
dominant hazard
$199M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (61st percentile)

national median $15M/yr Essex $199M

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 95.58/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 34.22/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (34th percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 95.64/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Essex

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 5,454 flood-insurance claims totaling $94.1M in Essex since 1978. The costliest year was 2006 ($24.4M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $3,147,366 paid 1979: $817,764 paid 1980: $4,664 paid 1981: $36,072 paid 1982: $607,221 paid 1983: $306,444 paid 1984: $95,930 paid 1985: $40,153 paid 1986: $5,315 paid 1987: $1,633,620 paid 1988: $4,006 paid 1989: $39,503 paid 1990: $48,319 paid 1991: $15,008,801 paid 1992: $2,308,141 paid 1993: $497,022 paid 1994: $187,873 paid 1995: $96,929 paid 1996: $2,591,584 paid 1997: $88,774 paid 1998: $641,863 paid 1999: $135,668 paid 2000: $38,218 paid 2001: $1,299,077 paid 2002: $31,191 paid 2003: $561,811 paid 2004: $1,032,781 paid 2005: $184,236 paid 2006: $24,401,398 paid 2007: $5,373,820 paid 2008: $424,457 paid 2009: $26,825 paid 2010: $4,111,926 paid 2011: $2,615,450 paid 2012: $517,282 paid 2013: $3,640,152 paid 2014: $501,561 paid 2015: $144,860 paid 2016: $41,126 paid 2017: $381,313 paid 2018: $13,386,733 paid 2019: $35,679 paid 2020: $117,542 paid 2021: $982,655 paid 2022: $796,231 paid 2023: $350,570 paid 2024: $4,794,383 paid 2025: $0 paid 2006 · $24.4M 1978 2025
$94.1M
total paid
$17,260
average claim
$1.6M
largest single claim
64%
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 Essex, MA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Essex 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.