Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Petersburg, VA

Virginia · pop. 33,446 · FIPS 51730

Very Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
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 Petersburg $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 16.95/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 62.37/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (62nd percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Low 38.8/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (39th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Petersburg

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 129 flood-insurance claims totaling $2.1M in Petersburg since 1979. The costliest year was 2025 ($786K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1979: $19,951 paid 1980: $0 paid 1981: $283 paid 1982: $496 paid 1983: $628 paid 1984: $0 paid 1985: $8,786 paid 1988: $1,664 paid 1989: $0 paid 1990: $10,768 paid 1991: $457 paid 1993: $3,345 paid 1996: $7,903 paid 1997: $22,385 paid 1998: $2,147 paid 1999: $124,817 paid 2001: $4,940 paid 2003: $216,385 paid 2004: $52,214 paid 2006: $50,857 paid 2008: $26,871 paid 2009: $1,147 paid 2010: $0 paid 2011: $27,047 paid 2013: $9,486 paid 2015: $9,700 paid 2016: $119,265 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $94,046 paid 2020: $32,480 paid 2021: $96,869 paid 2022: $0 paid 2023: $5,905 paid 2024: $318,404 paid 2025: $785,645 paid 2025 · $786K 1979 2025
$2.1M
total paid
$15,929
average claim
$354K
largest single claim
60%
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 Petersburg, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Petersburg 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.