Gunnison County, CO flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Gunnison County sits at the 57th national percentile, below the national norm for flood hazard; driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about once every 2 years. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
Gunnison County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Gunnison 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, 11.9% of them do — 83 active policies against 699 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 1% of all residential structures in Gunnison County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
How Gunnison County compares nationally
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Gunnison County ranks 1417 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 1959 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Gunnison County, Colorado is home to about 17,310 people across 3,239.14 square miles of land.
Your street may differ from Gunnison County's average
Across all of Gunnison County's 12,432 residential structures, 126 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where Gunnison 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.