District of Columbia, DC: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, District of Columbia scores at the 97.4th percentile for flood hazard, rated "Relatively High" — well above 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 4.2 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.
District of Columbia's flood-insurance compliance gap
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for District of Columbia'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, 1.2% of all residential structures in District of Columbia carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Where District of Columbia ranks
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, District of Columbia ranks 93 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 100 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. District of Columbia, District of Columbia covers 61.127 square miles and counts roughly 702,250 residents.
Checking a specific address in District of Columbia
1,443 of District of Columbia's 125,848 residential structures carry flood coverage of some kind, per FEMA's latest count — useful context, not a substitute for checking one parcel.
Where District of Columbia's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. District of Columbia'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.