Rice County, KS flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Rice County sits at the 22.2th national percentile, among the lowest flood hazard in the country; driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.2 times a year. This describes the county, not any one street — FEMA only publishes exact parcel zones through a live map service.
Who actually carries the flood insurance FEMA requires
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for Rice County's mapped flood zone, so a reliable mandatory-compliance percentage can't be computed here — see the data quality guide for why this gap exists for roughly a quarter of US counties. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 0.6% of all residential structures in Rice County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
How Rice County compares nationally
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Rice County ranks 2487 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 2466 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Rice County, Kansas is home to about 9,284 people across 726.235 square miles of land.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Rice County
31 of Rice County's 5,318 residential structures carry flood coverage of some kind, per FEMA's latest count — useful context, not a substitute for checking one parcel.
Where Rice County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Rice County's compliance figure is one of the ones affected by FEMA's incomplete denominator data — the data quality guide explains what that means and how many counties it touches.