Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Philadelphia, PA

Pennsylvania · pop. 1,602,305 · FIPS 42101

Very High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Heat Wave
dominant hazard
$667M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Philadelphia $667M

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 indexVery High 99.59/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery High 88.1/100
national median ~50 higher than 88% of counties
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 48.47/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (48th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Philadelphia

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 1,695 flood-insurance claims totaling $47.5M in Philadelphia since 1978. The costliest year was 2021 ($17.9M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $104,710 paid 1979: $313,402 paid 1980: $308,772 paid 1981: $6,346 paid 1982: $493,098 paid 1983: $7,036 paid 1984: $502,496 paid 1985: $356,805 paid 1986: $5,121 paid 1987: $17,236 paid 1988: $104,160 paid 1989: $24,293 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $33,195 paid 1992: $19,890 paid 1993: $159,023 paid 1994: $164,817 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $610,585 paid 1997: $0 paid 1998: $0 paid 1999: $6,086,252 paid 2000: $19,249 paid 2001: $14,002 paid 2002: $1,655 paid 2003: $16,848 paid 2004: $1,891,575 paid 2005: $329,511 paid 2006: $1,192,796 paid 2007: $25,942 paid 2008: $15,251 paid 2009: $54,392 paid 2010: $567,339 paid 2011: $2,949,682 paid 2012: $20,564 paid 2013: $0 paid 2014: $3,904,004 paid 2015: $6,240 paid 2016: $22,926 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $175,534 paid 2019: $155,983 paid 2020: $8,788,465 paid 2021: $17,946,068 paid 2022: $5,504 paid 2023: $110,620 paid 2024: $0 paid 2025: $7,867 paid 2021 · $17.9M 1978 2025
$47.5M
total paid
$28,047
average claim
$1.9M
largest single claim
57%
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 Philadelphia, PA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Philadelphia 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.