Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Waukesha, WI

Wisconsin · pop. 406,817 · FIPS 55133

Relatively Moderate
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Cold Wave
dominant hazard
$138M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

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

near the national middle (43rd percentile)

national median $15M/yr Waukesha $138M

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 88.87/100
national median ~50 higher than 89% of counties
Social vulnerabilityVery Low 10.62/100
national median ~50 among the lowest nationally
Community resilienceVery High 97.36/100
national median ~50 among the highest nationally

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Waukesha

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 461 flood-insurance claims totaling $9.3M in Waukesha since 1978. The costliest year was 2025 ($4.5M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1978: $0 paid 1979: $28,160 paid 1980: $17,068 paid 1981: $14,474 paid 1982: $17,438 paid 1983: $20,199 paid 1984: $2,631 paid 1985: $10,161 paid 1986: $19,166 paid 1991: $0 paid 1993: $20,592 paid 1994: $0 paid 1995: $0 paid 1996: $14,345 paid 1997: $459,419 paid 1998: $1,476,915 paid 1999: $50,617 paid 2000: $18,360 paid 2001: $2,225 paid 2004: $5,154 paid 2005: $0 paid 2006: $3,926 paid 2007: $0 paid 2008: $1,822,587 paid 2009: $158,071 paid 2010: $350,022 paid 2011: $0 paid 2012: $0 paid 2013: $15,886 paid 2015: $0 paid 2017: $13,521 paid 2018: $26,534 paid 2019: $3,949 paid 2020: $2,445 paid 2022: $60,020 paid 2024: $0 paid 2025: $4,540,972 paid 2026: $79,232 paid 2025 · $4.5M 1978 2026
$9.3M
total paid
$20,074
average claim
$535K
largest single claim
53%
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 Waukesha, WI and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Waukesha 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.