Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Lancaster, PA

Pennsylvania · pop. 552,633 · FIPS 42071

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Winter Weather
dominant hazard
$170M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (53rd percentile)

national median $15M/yr Lancaster $170M

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 95.04/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 43.51/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (44th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 70.07/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (70th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Lancaster

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 2,105 flood-insurance claims totaling $32.8M in Lancaster since 1978. The costliest year was 2011 ($16.0M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $1,377,377 paid 1979: $537,002 paid 1980: $4,698 paid 1981: $6,767 paid 1982: $68,097 paid 1983: $33,219 paid 1984: $362,057 paid 1985: $24,655 paid 1986: $842,643 paid 1987: $315,753 paid 1988: $51,654 paid 1989: $122,125 paid 1990: $1,593 paid 1992: $5,791 paid 1993: $90,584 paid 1994: $63,255 paid 1995: $108,522 paid 1996: $1,659,304 paid 1997: $1,219 paid 1998: $0 paid 1999: $854,457 paid 2000: $1,062,340 paid 2001: $501,421 paid 2002: $6,016 paid 2003: $113,832 paid 2004: $1,026,766 paid 2005: $1,378,221 paid 2006: $430,028 paid 2007: $0 paid 2008: $0 paid 2010: $32,166 paid 2011: $15,965,280 paid 2012: $153,027 paid 2013: $13,968 paid 2014: $40,759 paid 2015: $713 paid 2016: $0 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $2,594,408 paid 2020: $286,810 paid 2021: $1,485,454 paid 2024: $30,957 paid 2025: $1,134,156 paid 2011 · $16.0M 1978 2025
$32.8M
total paid
$15,576
average claim
$555K
largest single claim
61%
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 Lancaster, PA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Lancaster 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.