Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Wake, NC

North Carolina · pop. 1,128,357 · FIPS 37183

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hail
dominant hazard
$299M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Wake $299M

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 High 95.55/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 10.62/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 87.05/100
national median ~50 higher than 87% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Wake

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,640 flood-insurance claims totaling $31.2M in Wake since 1978. The costliest year was 1996 ($8.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $167,089 paid 1979: $77,167 paid 1980: $176,008 paid 1981: $1,075 paid 1982: $34,995 paid 1983: $142,184 paid 1984: $25,579 paid 1985: $25,277 paid 1986: $71,133 paid 1987: $0 paid 1988: $770 paid 1989: $116,969 paid 1990: $0 paid 1992: $53,241 paid 1993: $6,234 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $426,079 paid 1996: $8,333,060 paid 1997: $656,701 paid 1998: $85,395 paid 1999: $1,413,718 paid 2000: $12,728 paid 2001: $66,995 paid 2002: $678,998 paid 2003: $491,624 paid 2004: $12,033 paid 2005: $37,230 paid 2006: $7,415,567 paid 2007: $76,882 paid 2008: $54,730 paid 2009: $204,122 paid 2010: $20,517 paid 2011: $264,001 paid 2012: $25,755 paid 2013: $376,176 paid 2014: $292,618 paid 2015: $0 paid 2016: $6,020,401 paid 2017: $471,620 paid 2018: $870,330 paid 2019: $164,721 paid 2020: $174,032 paid 2021: $1,060,962 paid 2022: $262,876 paid 2023: $22,368 paid 2024: $274,418 paid 2025: $74,452 paid 2026: $0 paid 1996 · $8.3M 1978 2026
$31.2M
total paid
$19,048
average claim
$711K
largest single claim
62%
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 Wake, NC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Wake 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.