Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Bay, MI

Michigan · pop. 103,848 · FIPS 26017

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Winter Weather
dominant hazard
$38M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Bay $38M

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 Low 78.18/100
national median ~50 higher than 78% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 44.08/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (44th percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 98.38/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Bay

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 515 flood-insurance claims totaling $2.5M in Bay since 1979. The costliest year was 1986 ($815K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $934 paid 1980: $0 paid 1981: $6,501 paid 1983: $287,785 paid 1984: $0 paid 1985: $4,491 paid 1986: $815,301 paid 1987: $3,871 paid 1991: $0 paid 1993: $0 paid 1994: $1,973 paid 1996: $117,304 paid 1997: $3,429 paid 1998: $10,146 paid 2001: $349 paid 2002: $2,693 paid 2003: $0 paid 2004: $4,487 paid 2005: $0 paid 2008: $2,198 paid 2009: $0 paid 2011: $5,989 paid 2012: $24,895 paid 2013: $12,412 paid 2014: $24,234 paid 2016: $5,020 paid 2017: $364,726 paid 2018: $303,601 paid 2019: $491 paid 2020: $274,475 paid 2021: $193,398 paid 2023: $19,520 paid 1986 · $815K 1979 2023
$2.5M
total paid
$4,835
average claim
$138K
largest single claim
43%
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 Bay, MI and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Bay 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.