How much flood risk does Essex County actually carry?
Essex County lands at the 15.4th percentile of FEMA's National Risk Index for flooding, "Very Low" territory — among the lowest flood hazard in the country — with the hazard 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. That's a county-wide figure, not a per-address one — FEMA's parcel maps are a live lookup, not a bulk file.
Essex County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Essex County is one of the counties where FEMA's own denominator for mandated flood-zone structures is missing, so no compliance rate is shown rather than a guessed one — the data quality guide covers how common this is. Across all residential structures in Essex County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 0.4% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
Where Essex County ranks
Essex County sits at rank 2691 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 2728 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). About 6,037 people live in Essex County, Vermont, spread over 662.371 square miles.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Essex County
FEMA counts 4,548 residential structures in Essex County overall, 17 of them carrying some form of NFIP coverage — but a lender or insurer cares about one parcel, not that county total.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly which FEMA and Census tables feed Essex County's numbers. See the data quality guide for why Essex County, like hundreds of other counties, doesn't get a clean compliance percentage.