Wadena County, MN: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, Wadena County scores at the 27.6th percentile for flood hazard, rated "Very Low" — among the lowest flood hazard in the country. The hazard here is 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. This describes the county, not any one street — FEMA only publishes exact parcel zones through a live map service.
Mandatory flood insurance compliance in Wadena County
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for Wadena 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, 0.2% of all residential structures in Wadena County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Wadena County against the rest of the country
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Wadena County ranks 2326 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 2125 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Wadena County, Minnesota is home to about 14,437 people across 536.347 square miles of land.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Wadena County
Across all of Wadena County's 6,220 residential structures, 13 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where Wadena County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Wadena 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.