Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Lehigh, PA

Pennsylvania · pop. 373,891 · FIPS 42077

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Cold Wave
dominant hazard
$128M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (40th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Lehigh $128M

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 93.89/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 58.52/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (59th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 73.63/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (74th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Lehigh

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 967 flood-insurance claims totaling $12.4M in Lehigh since 1978. The costliest year was 2020 ($3.0M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $117,255 paid 1979: $484,874 paid 1980: $9,253 paid 1981: $23,600 paid 1982: $684,000 paid 1983: $27,161 paid 1984: $64,712 paid 1985: $106,385 paid 1986: $25,842 paid 1987: $1,854,966 paid 1988: $607 paid 1989: $4,658 paid 1992: $6,456 paid 1993: $49,020 paid 1994: $13,988 paid 1996: $672,853 paid 1997: $5,035 paid 1999: $43,736 paid 2000: $0 paid 2001: $117,799 paid 2002: $835 paid 2003: $333 paid 2004: $1,879,905 paid 2005: $1,001,857 paid 2006: $174,841 paid 2007: $7,142 paid 2008: $3,811 paid 2009: $0 paid 2010: $246,153 paid 2011: $729,811 paid 2013: $53,280 paid 2014: $63 paid 2015: $3,288 paid 2016: $44,516 paid 2018: $412,973 paid 2019: $24,774 paid 2020: $3,028,954 paid 2021: $437,622 paid 2022: $6,782 paid 2023: $0 paid 2024: $14,850 paid 2025: $40,358 paid 2026: $10,828 paid 2020 · $3.0M 1978 2026
$12.4M
total paid
$12,860
average claim
$404K
largest single claim
55%
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 Lehigh, PA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Lehigh 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.