How much flood risk does Otter Tail County actually carry?
Otter Tail County lands at the 83.4th percentile of FEMA's National Risk Index for flooding, "Relatively Moderate" territory — a middling flood hazard by national standards — with the hazard driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.3 times a year. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
Mandatory flood insurance compliance in Otter Tail County
Otter Tail 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 Otter Tail County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 0% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
How Otter Tail County compares nationally
Otter Tail County sits at rank 545 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 884 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). Otter Tail County, Minnesota is home to about 60,884 people across 1,971.636 square miles of land.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Otter Tail County
Across all of Otter Tail County's 45,211 residential structures, 7 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 Otter Tail County's numbers. See the data quality guide for why Otter Tail County, like hundreds of other counties, doesn't get a clean compliance percentage.