How much flood risk does Franklin County actually carry?
Franklin County lands at the 50.9th percentile of FEMA's National Risk Index for flooding, "Relatively Low" territory — below the national norm for flood hazard — with the hazard driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 2.3 times a year. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
Franklin County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Franklin 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, 8.5% of them do — 9 active policies against 106 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Across all residential structures in Franklin County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 0.1% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
Franklin County against the rest of the country
Franklin County sits at rank 1609 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 1954 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). About 17,586 people live in Franklin County, Arkansas, spread over 608.967 square miles.
Your street may differ from Franklin County's average
Across all of Franklin County's 8,680 residential structures, 11 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly which FEMA and Census tables feed Franklin County's numbers. The guide to what the Special Flood Hazard Area actually means explains why the mandatory-insurance rule exists and who it applies to.