Custer County, NE: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, Custer County scores at the 43.5th percentile for flood hazard, rated "Relatively Low" — below the national norm for flood hazard. The hazard here is driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.2 times a year. This describes the county, not any one street — FEMA only publishes exact parcel zones through a live map service.
Custer County's flood-insurance compliance gap
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for Custer 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, 0.4% of all residential structures in Custer County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Custer County against the rest of the country
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Custer County ranks 1837 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 2379 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. About 10,487 people live in Custer County, Nebraska, spread over 2,575.458 square miles.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Custer County
Across all of Custer County's 8,888 residential structures, 39 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where Custer County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Custer 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.