Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Custer, MT

Montana · pop. 11,841 · FIPS 30017

Very Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Cold Wave
dominant hazard
$10M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Custer $10M

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 indexVery Low 42.14/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (42nd percentile)
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 70.8/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (71st percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Low 27.1/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (27th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Custer

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 156 flood-insurance claims totaling $400K in Custer since 1978. The costliest year was 1979 ($230K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $4,638 paid 1979: $230,232 paid 1982: $0 paid 1983: $0 paid 1986: $0 paid 1991: $11,421 paid 1993: $0 paid 1996: $0 paid 1997: $0 paid 2001: $499 paid 2004: $0 paid 2005: $0 paid 2006: $5,288 paid 2007: $1,165 paid 2011: $136,826 paid 2012: $0 paid 2014: $3,621 paid 2018: $4,424 paid 2021: $1,947 paid 2023: $0 paid 1979 · $230K 1978 2023
$400K
total paid
$2,564
average claim
$32K
largest single claim
34%
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 Custer, MT and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Custer 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.