Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Essex, VA

Virginia · pop. 10,595 · FIPS 51057

Very Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Drought
dominant hazard
$5M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Essex $5M

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 indexVery Low 18.58/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 72.81/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (73rd percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Moderate 49.71/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (50th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Essex

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 241 flood-insurance claims totaling $5.9M in Essex since 1979. The costliest year was 2003 ($4.2M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $0 paid 1985: $92,512 paid 1996: $194,761 paid 1998: $54,645 paid 1999: $1,288 paid 2003: $4,198,152 paid 2004: $107,460 paid 2006: $1,177,057 paid 2009: $65,343 paid 2011: $0 paid 2012: $6,944 paid 2014: $43 paid 2015: $4,260 paid 2018: $2,704 paid 2020: $0 paid 2023: $4,331 paid 2003 · $4.2M 1979 2023
$5.9M
total paid
$24,521
average claim
$212K
largest single claim
77%
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 Essex, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Essex 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.