Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Galveston, TX

Texas · pop. 350,477 · FIPS 48167

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Cold Wave
dominant hazard
$198M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (61st percentile)

national median $15M/yr Galveston $198M

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 95.39/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 32.44/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (32nd percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 97.71/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Galveston

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 60,613 flood-insurance claims totaling $2.47B in Galveston since 1978. The costliest year was 2008 ($1.34B paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $17,610 paid 1979: $80,702,799 paid 1980: $995,029 paid 1981: $9,453,711 paid 1982: $143,754 paid 1983: $46,714,458 paid 1984: $1,010,113 paid 1985: $56,974 paid 1986: $221,182 paid 1987: $53,725 paid 1988: $105,902 paid 1989: $29,985,162 paid 1990: $83,261 paid 1991: $651,556 paid 1992: $234,988 paid 1993: $268,230 paid 1994: $5,815,618 paid 1995: $2,241,339 paid 1996: $538,332 paid 1997: $827,648 paid 1998: $20,517,105 paid 1999: $36,086 paid 2000: $176,665 paid 2001: $44,506,232 paid 2002: $2,920,098 paid 2003: $4,865,455 paid 2004: $292,683 paid 2005: $1,932,582 paid 2006: $2,244,036 paid 2007: $954,696 paid 2008: $1,337,122,877 paid 2009: $9,492,656 paid 2010: $262,547 paid 2011: $164,333 paid 2012: $300,852 paid 2013: $489,205 paid 2014: $577,295 paid 2015: $1,912,582 paid 2016: $1,202,002 paid 2017: $835,265,691 paid 2018: $3,423,372 paid 2019: $1,259,469 paid 2020: $2,329,279 paid 2021: $3,099,002 paid 2022: $619,246 paid 2023: $268,254 paid 2024: $13,367,409 paid 2025: $33,607 paid 2026: $0 paid 2008 · $1.34B 1978 2026
$2.47B
total paid
$40,746
average claim
$1.7M
largest single claim
69%
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 Galveston, TX and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Galveston 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.