Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Columbia, WI

Wisconsin · pop. 58,373 · FIPS 55021

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Hail
dominant hazard
$51M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Columbia $51M

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 81.42/100
national median ~50 higher than 81% of counties
Social vulnerabilityRelatively Low 23.98/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 91.25/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Columbia

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 179 flood-insurance claims totaling $2.4M in Columbia since 1978. The costliest year was 2019 ($587K paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $0 paid 1979: $0 paid 1980: $14,164 paid 1983: $1,268 paid 1986: $7,339 paid 1993: $65,322 paid 1998: $10,546 paid 2000: $20,452 paid 2001: $0 paid 2002: $0 paid 2004: $19,970 paid 2007: $8,930 paid 2008: $570,615 paid 2009: $29,071 paid 2010: $427,892 paid 2011: $50,145 paid 2013: $0 paid 2015: $0 paid 2016: $62,659 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $151,338 paid 2019: $587,255 paid 2020: $39,694 paid 2023: $75,000 paid 2024: $12,322 paid 2026: $264,464 paid 2019 · $587K 1978 2026
$2.4M
total paid
$13,511
average claim
$139K
largest single claim
75%
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 Columbia, WI and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Columbia 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.