Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Columbus, NC

North Carolina · pop. 50,557 · FIPS 37047

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Strong Wind
dominant hazard
$42M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Columbus $42M

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 86.86/100
national median ~50 higher than 87% of counties
Social vulnerabilityVery High 88.26/100
national median ~50 higher than 88% of counties
Community resilienceRelatively Low 23.19/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Columbus

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 712 flood-insurance claims totaling $25.0M in Columbus since 1979. The costliest year was 2018 ($14.9M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $650 paid 1983: $43,988 paid 1984: $0 paid 1985: $0 paid 1986: $1,231 paid 1987: $7,171 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $128,496 paid 1992: $0 paid 1993: $0 paid 1994: $149,250 paid 1995: $77,761 paid 1996: $138,703 paid 1998: $10,492 paid 1999: $1,736,892 paid 2003: $83,244 paid 2004: $1,484 paid 2005: $1,269 paid 2008: $6,089 paid 2010: $8,445 paid 2012: $22,098 paid 2013: $16,335 paid 2015: $50,932 paid 2016: $4,302,961 paid 2018: $14,855,768 paid 2019: $47,232 paid 2020: $37,156 paid 2021: $35,736 paid 2022: $3,841 paid 2023: $1,401,034 paid 2024: $654,403 paid 2025: $1,169,735 paid 2018 · $14.9M 1979 2025
$25.0M
total paid
$35,102
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
68%
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 Columbus, NC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Columbus 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.