Hazard Risk Per Resident (By Metro)

Hazard Risk Per Resident — By Metro

The same FEMA data, ranked by expected annual loss per resident instead of the county total -- so a small county with real exposure isn't buried under a handful of huge ones. Shown alongside Social Vulnerability and Community Resilience: what actually separates a bad storm from a catastrophe.

A raw total rewards scale — a huge county racks up a bigger number partly because there's simply more there to lose, not because any one resident faces more danger. Dividing by population fixes that. But the dollar figure alone still isn't the whole story: Social Vulnerability and Community Resilience are what actually separate a bad storm from a catastrophe — Hurricane Katrina made landfall as "only" a strong Category 3, and it became the deadliest disaster in this dataset's memory because of who could evacuate and whether the levees held, not because the wind was unsurvivable. Money buys mobility — a car, a place to go, the ability to miss work — so Lack of Reliable Transportation (the share of adults without it) is shown alongside as the closest available read on who actually can't leave. A high resilience score today can reflect real rebuilding since a past disaster, not a claim that the disaster didn't happen.

A small county landing near the top of this list isn't a math artifact to wave away — it's a different kind of signal than a big county in the same spot. The same dollar total that would barely register against Los Angeles's economy can be a meaningful share of a small county's whole tax base, workforce, or population. A high per-resident number in a small place isn't necessarily "this individual is in more danger" — it's closer to "one bad year could reshape this place's economy or its culture," which a huge, diverse county can absorb in a way a small one can't. Population is shown for every row so you can read the number in that context, not to discount it.

52 metros ranked, highest expected loss per resident first

#	Metro	Expected Loss / Resident / Yr	Population	Counties	Social Vulnerability	Community Resilience	Lacks Transportation
1	Alaska	$1,279	735,706	30	27.1	26.2	9.3%
2	Silicon Valley	$929	9,107,604	13	28.2	73.8	8.1%
3	Monterey	$920	437,613	1	54.8	24.7	11.5%
4	New Orleans	$880	981,662	7	68.1	98.7	11.7%
5	Baton Rouge	$751	875,313	10	56.5	62.9	10.9%
6	Hawaii	$744	1,445,235	5	31.9	65.6	8.1%
7	Greater Los Angeles	$734	12,974,487	2	47.9	14.2	9.7%
8	California	$728	11,281,795	40	44.3	35.0	10.5%
9	Greater St. Louis	$713	2,810,850	15	29.8	79.2	8.0%
10	Iowa	$692	1,961,051	88	28.1	82.5	7.5%
11	Montana	$689	932,137	49	34.0	56.8	8.4%
12	Nebraska	$676	1,978,707	93	19.5	72.3	7.0%
13	Bozeman & Greater Yellowstone	$675	409,908	14	17.6	69.4	7.4%
14	Missouri	$672	2,755,527	99	39.4	53.4	9.4%
15	Louisiana	$663	2,754,986	47	68.0	62.1	12.2%
16	Illinois	$623	2,861,906	80	43.4	81.0	8.6%
17	Arkansas	$622	2,471,665	72	64.4	43.1	10.7%
18	Minnesota	$622	1,999,896	73	32.4	89.1	8.1%
19	Mississippi	$556	2,946,779	82	68.5	52.9	12.5%
20	Kentucky	$544	4,081,359	114	52.4	58.0	—
21	Lehigh Valley (Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton)	$517	110,849	1	12.2	79.2	6.9%
22	Florida	$494	10,068,349	56	52.4	40.3	—
23	Alabama	$493	5,086,768	67	58.5	59.9	10.3%
24	the Sun Belt — Arizona	$488	7,378,838	15	40.5	16.9	9.2%
25	the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Corridor	$485	455,824	5	14.8	96.3	6.8%
26	Colorado	$480	1,812,743	51	25.8	48.1	—
27	Greater San Diego	$468	3,288,774	1	24.8	8.3	8.3%
28	Greater Chicago	$447	9,371,595	13	42.6	75.5	8.4%
29	New Mexico	$444	1,362,014	18	57.2	24.4	11.8%
30	Nevada	$431	3,184,612	17	42.0	12.6	10.4%
31	Kansas City	$410	2,218,142	14	21.4	65.8	7.8%
32	Northwest Arkansas	$404	577,726	3	23.5	39.1	8.2%
33	Boulder	$381	328,961	1	11.4	91.2	—
34	Idaho (Boise)	$375	1,709,092	37	22.1	52.8	7.7%
35	Georgia	$367	4,383,151	129	52.2	40.6	11.1%
36	Ames	$359	100,466	1	12.9	86.8	6.8%
37	the Twin Cities	$348	3,575,051	13	16.7	96.3	7.1%
38	Cincinnati	$334	533,578	9	15.7	69.1	6.7%
39	New York City	$331	6,955,289	12	47.4	61.7	7.7%
40	Tampa Bay	$320	3,304,691	4	45.1	20.8	—
41	Greater Miami / South Florida	$319	6,249,291	3	65.4	38.8	—
42	Des Moines	$318	693,166	5	16.3	92.1	6.7%
43	New England (NH · VT · ME · RI · CT)	$316	2,782,685	26	21.7	79.5	7.3%
44	Indianapolis	$314	2,151,989	11	27.4	69.6	7.7%
45	Denver	$313	3,002,721	10	14.5	60.8	—
46	Philadelphia	$312	2,050,212	6	30.2	80.7	7.9%
47	Michigan	$300	5,331,111	76	38.0	86.3	8.5%
48	Greater Orlando	$274	2,793,746	4	31.2	44.5	—
49	Detroit	$265	4,376,828	6	43.4	75.5	9.3%
50	Greater Atlanta	$233	6,256,377	29	21.4	41.0	8.9%
51	New England	$199	4,501,697	5	27.8	93.4	7.6%
52	the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia)	$194	3,164,572	5	32.0	62.4	8.1%