Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Cherokee, SC

South Carolina · pop. 56,186 · FIPS 45021

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Ice Storm
dominant hazard
$23M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Cherokee $23M

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 69.69/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (70th percentile)
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 62.95/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (63rd percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Low 26.27/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (26th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Cherokee

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 6 flood-insurance claims totaling $46K in Cherokee since 2004. The costliest year was 2004 ($17K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

2004: $17,165 paid 2005: $10,905 paid 2009: $9,987 paid 2013: $1,161 paid 2015: $1,793 paid 2024: $5,066 paid 2004 · $17K 2004 2024
$46K
total paid
$7,680
average claim
$17K
largest single claim
17%
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 Cherokee, SC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Cherokee 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.