Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Mercer, PA

Pennsylvania · pop. 110,623 · FIPS 42085

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Riverine Flooding
dominant hazard
$34M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Mercer $34M

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 Low 77.74/100
national median ~50 higher than 78% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 54.83/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (55th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 75.54/100
national median ~50 higher than 76% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Mercer

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 120 flood-insurance claims totaling $880K in Mercer since 1978. The costliest year was 2004 ($279K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $6,632 paid 1979: $0 paid 1980: $7,071 paid 1981: $421 paid 1983: $5,487 paid 1984: $574 paid 1985: $0 paid 1986: $13,673 paid 1987: $5,300 paid 1990: $27,554 paid 1992: $25,031 paid 1994: $814 paid 1995: $852 paid 1996: $11,026 paid 1997: $28,367 paid 1999: $11,628 paid 2002: $119,286 paid 2003: $121,275 paid 2004: $279,066 paid 2005: $30,211 paid 2006: $16,322 paid 2010: $0 paid 2011: $61,264 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $1,547 paid 2014: $23,332 paid 2015: $1,590 paid 2016: $0 paid 2017: $27,953 paid 2019: $24,519 paid 2021: $8,678 paid 2024: $20,526 paid 2004 · $279K 1978 2024
$880K
total paid
$7,333
average claim
$143K
largest single claim
52%
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 Mercer, PA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Mercer 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.