Alger County, MI: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, Alger County scores at the 22th percentile for flood hazard, rated "Very Low" — among the lowest flood hazard in the country. The hazard here is split between inland river flooding (about once every 6 years) and coastal storm surge (about once every 100 years). That's a county-wide figure, not a per-address one — FEMA's parcel maps are a live lookup, not a bulk file.
Who actually carries the flood insurance FEMA requires
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for Alger County's mapped flood zone, so a reliable mandatory-compliance percentage can't be computed here — see the data quality guide for why this gap exists for roughly a quarter of US counties. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 0.3% of all residential structures in Alger County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
How Alger County compares nationally
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Alger County ranks 2493 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 2515 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Alger County, Michigan covers 915.04 square miles and counts roughly 8,695 residents.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Alger County
Across all of Alger County's 7,743 residential structures, 19 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where Alger County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Alger County's compliance figure is one of the ones affected by FEMA's incomplete denominator data — the data quality guide explains what that means and how many counties it touches.