Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Chester, PA

Pennsylvania · pop. 534,152 · FIPS 42029

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Drought
dominant hazard
$173M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (53rd percentile)

national median $15M/yr Chester $173M

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 91.86/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 10.62/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 85.24/100
national median ~50 higher than 85% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Chester

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,911 flood-insurance claims totaling $37.5M in Chester since 1978. The costliest year was 2021 ($13.7M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $196,275 paid 1979: $361,133 paid 1980: $38,091 paid 1981: $4,319 paid 1982: $18,532 paid 1983: $120,645 paid 1984: $41,676 paid 1985: $29,286 paid 1986: $2,765 paid 1987: $2,084 paid 1988: $9,127 paid 1989: $71,520 paid 1990: $152,067 paid 1991: $309,180 paid 1992: $278,449 paid 1993: $304,907 paid 1994: $621,181 paid 1995: $9,446 paid 1996: $912,284 paid 1997: $0 paid 1998: $125,813 paid 1999: $3,302,675 paid 2000: $105,490 paid 2001: $20,162 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $2,056,359 paid 2004: $1,533,355 paid 2005: $89,443 paid 2006: $3,910,461 paid 2007: $13,145 paid 2008: $7,626 paid 2009: $16,191 paid 2010: $808,718 paid 2011: $2,560,124 paid 2012: $64,575 paid 2013: $167,320 paid 2014: $1,956,356 paid 2015: $31,728 paid 2016: $42,517 paid 2018: $1,481,668 paid 2019: $91,060 paid 2020: $1,348,501 paid 2021: $13,738,869 paid 2022: $13,175 paid 2023: $91,532 paid 2024: $433,552 paid 2025: $25,049 paid 2026: $0 paid 2021 · $13.7M 1978 2026
$37.5M
total paid
$19,633
average claim
$834K
largest single claim
67%
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 Chester, PA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Chester 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.