Property Atlas

County hazard profile

St. Louis, MO

Missouri · pop. 1,003,734 · FIPS 29189

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Heat Wave
dominant hazard
$753M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr St. Louis $753M

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 99.33/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 31.17/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (31st percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 79.74/100
national median ~50 higher than 80% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in St. Louis

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 12,029 flood-insurance claims totaling $264.7M in St. Louis since 1978. The costliest year was 1993 ($51.1M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $276,988 paid 1979: $6,162,758 paid 1980: $145,628 paid 1981: $536,496 paid 1982: $12,930,160 paid 1983: $4,318,178 paid 1984: $212,845 paid 1985: $2,512,278 paid 1986: $1,545,298 paid 1987: $56,724 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $3,130 paid 1990: $456,335 paid 1991: $1,940,160 paid 1992: $53,493 paid 1993: $51,061,386 paid 1994: $17,905,929 paid 1995: $4,124,145 paid 1996: $2,238,099 paid 1997: $16,458 paid 1998: $295,583 paid 1999: $1,056,191 paid 2000: $1,044,271 paid 2001: $88,344 paid 2002: $139,423 paid 2003: $947,101 paid 2004: $1,779,899 paid 2005: $390,888 paid 2006: $19,443 paid 2007: $97,975 paid 2008: $40,155,922 paid 2009: $215,789 paid 2010: $199,716 paid 2011: $2,080,617 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $1,483,351 paid 2014: $459,908 paid 2015: $25,754,421 paid 2016: $3,933,604 paid 2017: $13,461,196 paid 2018: $26,028 paid 2019: $3,598,192 paid 2020: $8,419,713 paid 2021: $37,869 paid 2022: $44,428,707 paid 2023: $410,695 paid 2024: $7,595,379 paid 2025: $124,074 paid 2026: $4,386 paid 1993 · $51.1M 1978 2026
$264.7M
total paid
$22,009
average claim
$1.0M
largest single claim
79%
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 St. Louis, MO and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether St. Louis 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.