Salt Lake County, UT flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Salt Lake County sits at the 92.9th national percentile, a middling flood hazard by national standards; driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.1 times a year. That's a county-wide figure, not a per-address one — FEMA's parcel maps are a live lookup, not a bulk file.
Salt Lake County's flood-insurance compliance gap
16.5% of the homes FEMA requires to carry flood insurance in Salt Lake County — those inside the mapped Special Flood Hazard Area — actually have a policy in force: 313 policies against 1,899 mandated structures, which means a meaningful share of legally-required coverage simply isn't there. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 0.3% of all residential structures in Salt Lake County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Where Salt Lake County ranks
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Salt Lake County ranks 240 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 39 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. About 1,216,274 people live in Salt Lake County, Utah, spread over 752.852 square miles.
Your street may differ from Salt Lake County's average
FEMA counts 324,763 residential structures in Salt Lake County overall, 813 of them carrying some form of NFIP coverage — but a lender or insurer cares about one parcel, not that county total.
Where Salt Lake 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.