Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Norfolk, VA

Virginia · pop. 237,884 · FIPS 51710

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
dominant hazard
$46M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Norfolk $46M

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 Moderate 81.23/100
national median ~50 higher than 81% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 36.42/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (36th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 66.92/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (67th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Norfolk

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 6,008 flood-insurance claims totaling $69.0M in Norfolk since 1978. The costliest year was 2009 ($24.1M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $197,688 paid 1979: $108,614 paid 1980: $15,413 paid 1981: $5,448 paid 1982: $183,739 paid 1983: $2,599 paid 1984: $10,533 paid 1985: $2,225 paid 1986: $1,526 paid 1987: $29,662 paid 1988: $7,707 paid 1989: $154,783 paid 1990: $54,474 paid 1991: $6,034 paid 1992: $21,082 paid 1993: $136 paid 1994: $46,438 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $2,331 paid 1997: $30,846 paid 1998: $1,705,722 paid 1999: $1,439,378 paid 2000: $16,931 paid 2001: $101,402 paid 2002: $62,075 paid 2003: $16,239,516 paid 2004: $410,629 paid 2005: $65,623 paid 2006: $2,422,875 paid 2007: $30,895 paid 2008: $63,662 paid 2009: $24,085,853 paid 2010: $379,126 paid 2011: $11,767,845 paid 2012: $2,572,074 paid 2013: $102,598 paid 2014: $67,624 paid 2015: $416,720 paid 2016: $5,410,877 paid 2017: $17,653 paid 2018: $204,776 paid 2019: $62,801 paid 2020: $148,517 paid 2021: $28,962 paid 2022: $82,126 paid 2023: $80,259 paid 2024: $13,131 paid 2025: $83,550 paid 2026: $0 paid 2009 · $24.1M 1978 2026
$69.0M
total paid
$11,479
average claim
$503K
largest single claim
78%
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.

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text

What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for Norfolk, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Norfolk 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.