Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Columbia, NY

New York · pop. 61,549 · FIPS 36021

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Landslide
dominant hazard
$25M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Columbia $25M

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 68.67/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (69th percentile)
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 57.16/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (57th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 79.45/100
national median ~50 higher than 79% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Columbia

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 236 flood-insurance claims totaling $3.0M in Columbia since 1978. The costliest year was 2011 ($839K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $17,930 paid 1979: $18,580 paid 1980: $15,104 paid 1981: $23,232 paid 1982: $8,276 paid 1983: $34,544 paid 1984: $35,003 paid 1986: $42,958 paid 1987: $46,583 paid 1988: $35,243 paid 1990: $148,316 paid 1991: $706 paid 1993: $83,169 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $21,347 paid 1996: $291,035 paid 1999: $39,630 paid 2000: $129,616 paid 2001: $6,822 paid 2004: $40,489 paid 2005: $93,227 paid 2006: $532 paid 2007: $132,382 paid 2008: $77,807 paid 2009: $456,017 paid 2011: $838,504 paid 2012: $252,935 paid 2013: $0 paid 2014: $96,335 paid 2016: $3,212 paid 2017: $0 paid 2021: $18,300 paid 2022: $0 paid 2023: $0 paid 2024: $6,570 paid 2011 · $839K 1978 2024
$3.0M
total paid
$12,773
average claim
$151K
largest single claim
61%
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.

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text

What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for Columbia, NY and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Columbia 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.