El Paso County, CO: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, El Paso County scores at the 95th 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 4.1 times a year. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
El Paso County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside El Paso 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, 27.3% of them do — 443 active policies against 1,621 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 0.5% of all residential structures in El Paso County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
How El Paso County compares nationally
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, El Paso County ranks 169 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 87 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. El Paso County, Colorado is home to about 752,772 people across 2,126.424 square miles of land.
Checking a specific address in El Paso County
Across all of El Paso County's 231,278 residential structures, 1,208 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where El Paso 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.