Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Chelan, WA

Washington · pop. 78,989 · FIPS 53007

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Wildfire
dominant hazard
$89M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

lower than most counties (27th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Chelan $89M

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 90.87/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 48.63/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (49th percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively High 70.42/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (70th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Chelan

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 183 flood-insurance claims totaling $3.0M in Chelan since 1980. The costliest year was 2025 ($1.8M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1980: $10,116 paid 1984: $0 paid 1987: $0 paid 1989: $2,653 paid 1990: $205,134 paid 1991: $0 paid 1993: $39,091 paid 1995: $433,475 paid 1996: $81,908 paid 1997: $12,498 paid 1998: $16,281 paid 1999: $24,165 paid 2000: $9,691 paid 2003: $121,979 paid 2004: $0 paid 2006: $80,301 paid 2009: $20,671 paid 2010: $5,093 paid 2013: $28,291 paid 2016: $4,798 paid 2017: $0 paid 2019: $58,241 paid 2024: $4,275 paid 2025: $1,790,989 paid 2026: $11,003 paid 2025 · $1.8M 1980 2026
$3.0M
total paid
$16,178
average claim
$254K
largest single claim
61%
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 Chelan, WA and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Chelan 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.