Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Kanawha, WV

West Virginia · pop. 180,603 · FIPS 54039

Relatively High
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Riverine Flooding
dominant hazard
$143M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (44th percentile)

national median $15M/yr Kanawha $143M

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 High 94.53/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Moderate 58.02/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (58th percentile)
Community resilienceVery High 82.44/100
national median ~50 higher than 82% of counties

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Kanawha

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 2,445 flood-insurance claims totaling $43.0M in Kanawha since 1978. The costliest year was 2016 ($18.7M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $266,878 paid 1979: $25,677 paid 1980: $91,106 paid 1981: $3,626 paid 1982: $53,028 paid 1983: $0 paid 1984: $0 paid 1985: $100,483 paid 1986: $19,317 paid 1987: $10,680 paid 1989: $76,980 paid 1990: $0 paid 1991: $81,758 paid 1992: $11,013 paid 1993: $8,791 paid 1994: $6,390 paid 1995: $463,592 paid 1996: $582,804 paid 1997: $2,386,345 paid 1998: $2,797,358 paid 1999: $1,577 paid 2000: $780,209 paid 2001: $234,024 paid 2002: $42,661 paid 2003: $5,071,877 paid 2004: $2,148,322 paid 2005: $26,016 paid 2006: $195,997 paid 2007: $701,095 paid 2008: $142,285 paid 2009: $364,366 paid 2010: $1,414,516 paid 2011: $20,838 paid 2012: $7,413 paid 2013: $358,075 paid 2014: $74,625 paid 2015: $936,777 paid 2016: $18,684,672 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $166,421 paid 2019: $45,998 paid 2020: $5,123 paid 2021: $2,013,354 paid 2022: $1,041,868 paid 2023: $548,790 paid 2024: $727,210 paid 2025: $253,828 paid 2016 · $18.7M 1978 2025
$43.0M
total paid
$17,584
average claim
$1.0M
largest single claim
69%
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 Kanawha, WV and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Kanawha 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.