Brooke County, WV flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Brooke County sits at the 75.7th national percentile, a middling flood hazard by national standards; driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.3 times a year. That's a county-wide figure, not a per-address one — FEMA's parcel maps are a live lookup, not a bulk file.
Brooke County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Brooke County's mapped high-risk flood zone (the Special Flood Hazard Area, or SFHA) are legally required to carry an NFIP flood policy. In practice, 12% of them do — 95 active policies against 794 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 1% of all residential structures in Brooke County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
How Brooke County compares nationally
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Brooke County ranks 800 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 1757 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Brooke County, West Virginia covers 89.036 square miles and counts roughly 21,285 residents.
Your street may differ from Brooke County's average
FEMA counts 10,222 residential structures in Brooke County overall, 103 of them carrying some form of NFIP coverage — but a lender or insurer cares about one parcel, not that county total.
Where Brooke County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. If you're unsure why any of this insurance requirement exists at all, the SFHA explainer covers it from first principles.