Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Gaston, NC

North Carolina · pop. 227,866 · FIPS 37071

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Ice Storm
dominant hazard
$59M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Gaston $59M

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 84.86/100
national median ~50 higher than 85% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 29.07/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (29th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 51.34/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (51st percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Gaston

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 105 flood-insurance claims totaling $1.3M in Gaston since 1979. The costliest year was 2024 ($539K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $65 paid 1981: $0 paid 1986: $2,605 paid 1989: $1,179 paid 1991: $1,034 paid 1993: $1,767 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $219,094 paid 1997: $5,464 paid 1998: $0 paid 1999: $6,386 paid 2001: $0 paid 2003: $0 paid 2004: $0 paid 2006: $15,488 paid 2008: $3,415 paid 2010: $8,067 paid 2011: $14,327 paid 2012: $14,332 paid 2013: $67,720 paid 2014: $3,591 paid 2015: $14,362 paid 2016: $6,794 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $11,510 paid 2019: $72,623 paid 2020: $322,126 paid 2023: $4,650 paid 2024: $539,077 paid 2024 · $539K 1979 2024
$1.3M
total paid
$12,721
average claim
$192K
largest single claim
72%
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 Gaston, NC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Gaston 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.