Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Essex, NJ

New Jersey · pop. 863,448 · FIPS 34013

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Heat Wave
dominant hazard
$214M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (66th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Essex $214M

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 97.71/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery High 80.34/100
national median ~50 higher than 80% of counties
Community resilienceRelatively Low 27.7/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (28th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Essex

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 5,838 flood-insurance claims totaling $163.1M in Essex since 1978. The costliest year was 2011 ($60.7M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $211,717 paid 1979: $270,268 paid 1980: $76,132 paid 1981: $401,179 paid 1982: $30,359 paid 1983: $331,867 paid 1984: $2,523,996 paid 1985: $13,949 paid 1986: $60,854 paid 1987: $44,849 paid 1988: $15,926 paid 1989: $290,189 paid 1990: $14,963 paid 1991: $16,012 paid 1992: $171,454 paid 1993: $149,052 paid 1994: $54,915 paid 1995: $211,501 paid 1996: $497,335 paid 1997: $1,033,311 paid 1998: $66,996 paid 1999: $10,167,725 paid 2000: $6,494 paid 2001: $1,151,370 paid 2002: $54,001 paid 2003: $8,560 paid 2004: $1,331 paid 2005: $879,109 paid 2006: $248,839 paid 2007: $8,546,188 paid 2008: $43,186 paid 2009: $84,246 paid 2010: $5,659,376 paid 2011: $60,717,548 paid 2012: $16,932,587 paid 2013: $29,764 paid 2014: $600,634 paid 2015: $298,343 paid 2016: $0 paid 2017: $1,073 paid 2018: $1,823,800 paid 2019: $61,288 paid 2020: $9,464 paid 2021: $46,449,291 paid 2022: $107,012 paid 2023: $893,057 paid 2024: $1,843,943 paid 2025: $19,603 paid 2026: $0 paid 2011 · $60.7M 1978 2026
$163.1M
total paid
$27,942
average claim
$1.0M
largest single claim
73%
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, NJ 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.