Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Salem, VA

Virginia · pop. 25,346 · FIPS 51775

Very Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hurricane
dominant hazard
$9M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Salem $9M

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 18.64/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 12.75/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceRelatively High 78.63/100
national median ~50 higher than 79% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Salem

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 812 flood-insurance claims totaling $18.9M in Salem since 1978. The costliest year was 2004 ($4.1M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $733,649 paid 1979: $3,055 paid 1980: $1,607 paid 1983: $12,330 paid 1984: $960 paid 1985: $3,787,596 paid 1986: $0 paid 1987: $6,975 paid 1989: $23,183 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $4,583 paid 1992: $3,185,476 paid 1993: $3,244 paid 1995: $170,073 paid 1996: $532,869 paid 1997: $37,195 paid 1998: $575 paid 2000: $20,959 paid 2002: $0 paid 2003: $3,256,589 paid 2004: $4,098,832 paid 2005: $0 paid 2006: $22,707 paid 2010: $0 paid 2013: $370,651 paid 2015: $113,793 paid 2016: $3,490 paid 2017: $231,371 paid 2018: $1,756,430 paid 2020: $425,676 paid 2024: $14,047 paid 2025: $32,822 paid 2004 · $4.1M 1978 2025
$18.9M
total paid
$23,215
average claim
$381K
largest single claim
83%
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 Salem, VA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Salem 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.