Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Dorchester, SC

South Carolina · pop. 161,445 · FIPS 45035

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Earthquake
dominant hazard
$176M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (54th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Dorchester $176M

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 Moderate 93.7/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 16.03/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 57.44/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (57th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Dorchester

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 779 flood-insurance claims totaling $16.8M in Dorchester since 1979. The costliest year was 2015 ($8.7M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $0 paid 1980: $1,571 paid 1981: $0 paid 1982: $23,202 paid 1983: $21,369 paid 1986: $0 paid 1987: $7,532 paid 1988: $2,514 paid 1989: $105,219 paid 1991: $29,498 paid 1992: $3,202 paid 1993: $8,243 paid 1994: $27,792 paid 1995: $726 paid 1997: $3,988 paid 1998: $9,040 paid 1999: $138,843 paid 2001: $4,552 paid 2003: $40,046 paid 2005: $0 paid 2008: $0 paid 2009: $12,568 paid 2010: $11,466 paid 2011: $47,734 paid 2012: $10,031 paid 2013: $99,182 paid 2014: $2,922 paid 2015: $8,691,510 paid 2016: $3,031,182 paid 2017: $779,197 paid 2018: $124,515 paid 2019: $7,355 paid 2020: $354,752 paid 2021: $32,859 paid 2022: $113,038 paid 2023: $23,913 paid 2024: $2,859,225 paid 2025: $219,381 paid 2015 · $8.7M 1979 2025
$16.8M
total paid
$21,628
average claim
$335K
largest single claim
73%
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 Dorchester, SC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Dorchester 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.