Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Rowan, NC

North Carolina · pop. 146,778 · FIPS 37159

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Ice Storm
dominant hazard
$48M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Rowan $48M

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 82.92/100
national median ~50 higher than 83% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 42.91/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (43rd percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 48.76/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (49th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Rowan

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 65 flood-insurance claims totaling $1.1M in Rowan since 1981. The costliest year was 2020 ($590K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1981: $0 paid 1982: $2,744 paid 1983: $0 paid 1985: $0 paid 1987: $0 paid 1995: $1,450 paid 1996: $29,029 paid 2001: $3,351 paid 2003: $48,650 paid 2004: $13,672 paid 2005: $42,234 paid 2006: $0 paid 2008: $217,876 paid 2009: $4,336 paid 2010: $42,986 paid 2011: $2,223 paid 2013: $0 paid 2016: $0 paid 2018: $146,166 paid 2020: $590,243 paid 2020 · $590K 1981 2020
$1.1M
total paid
$17,615
average claim
$516K
largest single claim
37%
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 Rowan, NC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Rowan 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.