Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Berkeley, SC

South Carolina · pop. 229,449 · FIPS 45015

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
dominant hazard
$214M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (66th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Berkeley $214M

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 94.82/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 14.76/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively High 62.75/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (63rd percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Berkeley

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 618 flood-insurance claims totaling $8.7M in Berkeley since 1979. The costliest year was 2016 ($2.8M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $5,130 paid 1981: $2,997 paid 1983: $3,968 paid 1985: $3,079 paid 1987: $32,294 paid 1989: $334,482 paid 1990: $1,006 paid 1991: $6,287 paid 1992: $1,861 paid 1994: $2,668 paid 1995: $2,054 paid 1996: $3,617 paid 1997: $9,674 paid 1998: $27,157 paid 1999: $12,610 paid 2000: $11,579 paid 2001: $0 paid 2002: $22,478 paid 2003: $2,400 paid 2004: $80,514 paid 2005: $5,116 paid 2008: $149,629 paid 2009: $27,777 paid 2010: $0 paid 2011: $4,576 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $71,280 paid 2014: $16,843 paid 2015: $2,545,353 paid 2016: $2,774,983 paid 2017: $550,260 paid 2018: $85,602 paid 2019: $2,289 paid 2020: $75,172 paid 2021: $315,939 paid 2022: $25,887 paid 2023: $19,256 paid 2024: $1,486,943 paid 2025: $0 paid 2016 · $2.8M 1979 2025
$8.7M
total paid
$14,114
average claim
$247K
largest single claim
71%
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.

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text

What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for Berkeley, SC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Berkeley 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.