Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Houston, TX

Texas · pop. 22,033 · FIPS 48225

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Lightning
dominant hazard
$13M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Houston $13M

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 60.66/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (61st percentile)
Social vulnerabilityVery High 95.58/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively Low 25.41/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (25th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Houston

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 28 flood-insurance claims totaling $383K in Houston since 1979. The costliest year was 2023 ($151K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $4,101 paid 1980: $0 paid 1991: $952 paid 1993: $10,091 paid 1999: $0 paid 2001: $13,886 paid 2005: $0 paid 2012: $2,796 paid 2015: $58,581 paid 2016: $3,590 paid 2018: $4,141 paid 2021: $118,015 paid 2023: $151,462 paid 2025: $15,155 paid 2023 · $151K 1979 2025
$383K
total paid
$13,670
average claim
$134K
largest single claim
11%
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 Houston, TX and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Houston 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.