Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Buchanan, VA

Virginia · pop. 20,340 · FIPS 51027

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Landslide
dominant hazard
$11M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Buchanan $11M

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 50.6/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (51st percentile)
Social vulnerabilityVery High 85.62/100
national median ~50 higher than 86% of counties
Community resilienceVery Low 5.41/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Buchanan

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 359 flood-insurance claims totaling $4.6M in Buchanan since 1978. The costliest year was 2025 ($1.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $182,153 paid 1979: $209,958 paid 1981: $5,030 paid 1982: $137,169 paid 1983: $106 paid 1984: $923,443 paid 1987: $12,277 paid 1989: $0 paid 1990: $0 paid 1996: $6,893 paid 1998: $12,447 paid 2000: $3,317 paid 2001: $38,795 paid 2002: $547,108 paid 2003: $275,731 paid 2004: $104,981 paid 2005: $5,134 paid 2007: $0 paid 2009: $1,369 paid 2010: $3,941 paid 2012: $5,906 paid 2013: $36,277 paid 2014: $0 paid 2015: $2,194 paid 2018: $986 paid 2019: $1,630 paid 2020: $16,984 paid 2021: $172,202 paid 2022: $612,834 paid 2025: $1,250,229 paid 2025 · $1.3M 1978 2025
$4.6M
total paid
$12,727
average claim
$500K
largest single claim
35%
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 Buchanan, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Buchanan 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.