Sierra County, NM flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Sierra County sits at the 74.3th 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 1.9 times a year. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
Sierra County's flood-insurance compliance gap
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for Sierra 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, 0.3% of all residential structures in Sierra County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Sierra County against the rest of the country
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Sierra County ranks 846 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 2323 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Sierra County, New Mexico covers 4,181.214 square miles and counts roughly 11,389 residents.
Your street may differ from Sierra County's average
27 of Sierra County's 7,884 residential structures carry flood coverage of some kind, per FEMA's latest count — useful context, not a substitute for checking one parcel.
Where Sierra County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Sierra 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.