Carter County, TN flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Carter County sits at the 77.4th 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 once every 1 years. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
Who actually carries the flood insurance FEMA requires
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Carter 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, 19.5% of them do — 326 active policies against 1,670 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 1.4% of all residential structures in Carter County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Where Carter County ranks
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Carter County ranks 742 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 920 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. About 57,434 people live in Carter County, Tennessee, spread over 341.288 square miles.
Your street may differ from Carter County's average
FEMA counts 25,566 residential structures in Carter County overall, 361 of them carrying some form of NFIP coverage — but a lender or insurer cares about one parcel, not that county total.
Where Carter 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.