Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Charleston, SC

South Carolina · pop. 407,722 · FIPS 45019

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Coastal Flooding
dominant hazard
$500M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the highest nationally

national median $15M/yr Charleston $500M

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 98.63/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 22.42/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 96.12/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Charleston

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 19,285 flood-insurance claims totaling $312.2M in Charleston since 1978. The costliest year was 1989 ($181.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $3,317 paid 1979: $381,273 paid 1980: $4,135 paid 1981: $6,455 paid 1982: $125,726 paid 1983: $15,726 paid 1984: $58,303 paid 1985: $30,388 paid 1986: $33,988 paid 1987: $591,910 paid 1988: $99,819 paid 1989: $181,218,601 paid 1990: $376,857 paid 1991: $27,112 paid 1992: $145,492 paid 1993: $139,707 paid 1994: $1,530,961 paid 1995: $128,437 paid 1996: $245,646 paid 1997: $695,985 paid 1998: $480,263 paid 1999: $628,743 paid 2000: $104,479 paid 2001: $397,112 paid 2002: $456,052 paid 2003: $67,843 paid 2004: $1,256,566 paid 2005: $800,147 paid 2006: $143,169 paid 2007: $28,252 paid 2008: $3,657,645 paid 2009: $375,505 paid 2010: $94,558 paid 2011: $99,274 paid 2012: $1,163,434 paid 2013: $483,417 paid 2014: $89,194 paid 2015: $27,927,002 paid 2016: $33,890,386 paid 2017: $39,437,283 paid 2018: $1,604,774 paid 2019: $299,659 paid 2020: $1,107,548 paid 2021: $245,772 paid 2022: $2,703,833 paid 2023: $5,664,963 paid 2024: $2,947,521 paid 2025: $218,504 paid 2026: $4,396 paid 1989 · $181.2M 1978 2026
$312.2M
total paid
$16,191
average claim
$601K
largest single claim
88%
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 Charleston, SC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Charleston 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.