Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Orange, NC

North Carolina · pop. 148,579 · FIPS 37135

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Winter Weather
dominant hazard
$50M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Orange $50M

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 79.07/100
national median ~50 higher than 79% of counties
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 16.57/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 93.61/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Orange

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 568 flood-insurance claims totaling $35.6M in Orange since 1978. The costliest year was 2025 ($20.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $902 paid 1979: $0 paid 1982: $9,940 paid 1983: $0 paid 1984: $2,126 paid 1985: $5,630 paid 1987: $298 paid 1989: $5,131 paid 1993: $38,768 paid 1995: $332,706 paid 1996: $587,672 paid 1998: $14,763 paid 1999: $41,297 paid 2000: $2,032,990 paid 2001: $4,591 paid 2002: $10,872 paid 2003: $807 paid 2008: $246,323 paid 2009: $0 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $4,616,935 paid 2014: $56,986 paid 2015: $275,273 paid 2016: $275,606 paid 2017: $30,000 paid 2018: $5,476,410 paid 2019: $368,136 paid 2020: $35,819 paid 2022: $53,358 paid 2023: $77,879 paid 2024: $702,347 paid 2025: $20,280,249 paid 2025 · $20.3M 1978 2025
$35.6M
total paid
$62,648
average claim
$771K
largest single claim
75%
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 Orange, NC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Orange 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.