Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Chesapeake, VA

Virginia · pop. 249,270 · FIPS 51550

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
dominant hazard
$56M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Chesapeake $56M

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 80.85/100
national median ~50 higher than 81% of counties
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 13.77/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 89.69/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Chesapeake

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 2,634 flood-insurance claims totaling $27.3M in Chesapeake since 1978. The costliest year was 2009 ($9.3M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $16,133 paid 1979: $0 paid 1980: $995 paid 1981: $2,121 paid 1982: $38,131 paid 1983: $0 paid 1984: $9,030 paid 1985: $5,750 paid 1986: $1,699 paid 1987: $3,673 paid 1988: $9,552 paid 1989: $12,969 paid 1990: $50,727 paid 1991: $12,997 paid 1992: $67,131 paid 1993: $6,014 paid 1994: $7,350 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $10,074 paid 1997: $43,528 paid 1998: $461,724 paid 1999: $661,366 paid 2000: $79,280 paid 2001: $0 paid 2002: $3,783 paid 2003: $5,958,469 paid 2004: $48,170 paid 2005: $59,778 paid 2006: $1,434,014 paid 2007: $13,351 paid 2008: $45,516 paid 2009: $9,346,485 paid 2010: $114,429 paid 2011: $4,701,091 paid 2012: $631,288 paid 2013: $94,580 paid 2014: $141,022 paid 2015: $285,095 paid 2016: $2,448,704 paid 2017: $32,448 paid 2018: $47,502 paid 2019: $15,877 paid 2020: $116,354 paid 2021: $14,191 paid 2022: $120,245 paid 2023: $23,411 paid 2024: $23,923 paid 2025: $65,237 paid 2009 · $9.3M 1978 2025
$27.3M
total paid
$10,359
average claim
$139K
largest single claim
86%
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 Chesapeake, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Chesapeake 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.