Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Lynchburg, VA

Virginia · pop. 78,993 · FIPS 51680

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Strong Wind
dominant hazard
$15M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Lynchburg $15M

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 49.3/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (49th percentile)
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 49.24/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (49th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 76.56/100
national median ~50 higher than 77% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Lynchburg

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 151 flood-insurance claims totaling $4.1M in Lynchburg since 1978. The costliest year was 1985 ($1.6M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $7,452 paid 1979: $579 paid 1981: $36,552 paid 1982: $7,931 paid 1985: $1,620,300 paid 1987: $83,182 paid 1988: $0 paid 1989: $123,267 paid 1990: $0 paid 1992: $306,271 paid 1993: $0 paid 1995: $172,678 paid 1996: $1,257,411 paid 1998: $0 paid 1999: $0 paid 2003: $2,052 paid 2006: $0 paid 2010: $11,422 paid 2018: $365,414 paid 2019: $0 paid 2020: $0 paid 2021: $2,806 paid 2023: $78,866 paid 1985 · $1.6M 1978 2023
$4.1M
total paid
$26,995
average claim
$400K
largest single claim
68%
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 Lynchburg, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Lynchburg 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.