Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Cape Girardeau, MO

Missouri · pop. 81,676 · FIPS 29031

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Earthquake
dominant hazard
$68M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Cape Girardeau $68M

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 85.69/100
national median ~50 higher than 86% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 20.52/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 83.52/100
national median ~50 higher than 84% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Cape Girardeau

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,074 flood-insurance claims totaling $11.2M in Cape Girardeau since 1978. The costliest year was 1986 ($3.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $5,400 paid 1979: $270,737 paid 1980: $631 paid 1981: $1,395 paid 1982: $597,808 paid 1983: $438,942 paid 1984: $98,112 paid 1985: $63,531 paid 1986: $3,249,741 paid 1989: $8,681 paid 1990: $10,979 paid 1991: $4,072 paid 1993: $1,530,836 paid 1994: $20,404 paid 1995: $725,991 paid 1996: $3,416 paid 1997: $219,174 paid 1999: $0 paid 2001: $37,566 paid 2002: $333,119 paid 2003: $2,689 paid 2005: $1,748 paid 2006: $1,542 paid 2008: $774,191 paid 2009: $0 paid 2011: $562,523 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $49,617 paid 2015: $886,858 paid 2016: $1,194,914 paid 2017: $28,120 paid 2018: $9,827 paid 2019: $18,779 paid 2022: $4,201 paid 2025: $0 paid 1986 · $3.2M 1978 2025
$11.2M
total paid
$10,387
average claim
$612K
largest single claim
81%
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 Cape Girardeau, MO and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Cape Girardeau 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.