364 flood insurance claims·$8.3M paid·13 federal flood & hurricane disasters
Share of the whole county outline, rivers and lakes included; parts FEMA hasn’t mapped count as zero.
Shaded areas are FEMA’s mapped flood hazard zones in and around Suwannee County, Florida. Zoomed out they are simplified; at street level the map switches to FEMA’s exact layer. Tap anywhere to check that spot, or search an address above.
Suwannee County experiences a flood risk profile dominated by flash flooding and tropical systems, supported by 12 flash flood events, 10 tropical storms, 8 floods, and 2 hurricanes recorded over the last 30 years in the NOAA Storm Events Database.
Recent historic impacts include Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall as a category 3 storm on August 30, 2023, moving its inner wind core northeast across the Suwannee River Valley. Subsequently, Hurricane Debby brought widespread inland flooding, flash flooding, and moderate to major river flooding to the Suwannee River Valley on August 4 and 5, 2024.
National Flood Insurance Program records indicate that property owners in designated high-risk areas
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
2% of Suwannee County’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
231 NFIP claims with a recorded rated flood zone, 1978 to date. The zone is the one FEMA used to rate that policy, which may not match today’s map. Source: OpenFEMA NFIP claims.
In flood insurance claims here that reported a flood depth, the average was 7 inches.
Drawn to scale against an 80-inch door. Even a few inches soaks flooring, the bottom of the drywall and anything plugged in near the floor.
Average of the depths reported on claims (zero and implausible values left out); FEMA’s record doesn’t say exactly where each depth was measured. Source: OpenFEMA NFIP claims.
The worst year was 2012, with 74 claims and $2.9M paid, the year of Tropical Storm Debby.
Bar height is scaled by square root so ordinary years stay visible next to the worst one. NFIP claims by year of loss. Source: OpenFEMA.
13 NOAA storm reports from Suwannee County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Florida flood stories →
39 federal disaster declarations since 1973, 13 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Hurricane Milton | Oct 5, 2024 |
| Hurricane Helene | Sep 23, 2024 |
| Tropical Storm Helene | Sep 23, 2024 |
| Hurricane Debby | Aug 1, 2024 |
| Tropical Storm Debby | Aug 1, 2024 |
| Severe Storms, Straight-line Winds, And Tornadoes | May 10, 2024 |
| Hurricane Idalia | Aug 27, 2023 |
| Tropical Storm Idalia | Aug 27, 2023 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
32 since 1996: 12 flash floods and 8 river or area floods.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane (Typhoon) | Sep 26, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | Aug 5, 2024 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Aug 4, 2024 | — |
| Hurricane (Typhoon) | Aug 30, 2023 | — |
| Flood | Mar 12, 2022 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Nov 10, 2022 | — |
| Tropical Storm | Jul 7, 2021 | — |
| Flood | Jun 7, 2020 | — |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Hurricane (Typhoon) · Sep 26, 2024. Hurricane Helene made landfall as a category 4 with peak winds of near 140 mph in the Florida Big |Bend just east of the Aucilla River Entrance in Taylor County, late Thursday evening September 26, |2024. Helene's main impact to southeast Georgia and northeast Florida was wind damage as it |tracked quickly north-northeast. The very powerful hurricane and the forward motion produced a |wide swath of wind damage ac…
Flash Flood · Aug 5, 2024. Hurricane Debby made landfall as a Category 1 storm along the FL Big Bend coast during the early morning of August 5, 2024. Prior to landfall, outer convective bands produced tornadoes across portions of northeast Florida on August 4th. Widespread flooding moved inland with Debby across the Suwannee River Valley and inland Southeast Georgia where flash flooding and moderate to major river flooding occurred.
Tropical Storm · Aug 4, 2024. Hurricane Debby made landfall as a Category 1 storm along the FL Big Bend coast during the early morning of August 5, 2024. Prior to landfall, outer convective bands produced tornadoes across portions of northeast Florida on August 4th. Widespread flooding moved inland with Debby across the Suwannee River Valley and inland Southeast Georgia where flash flooding and moderate to major river flooding occurred.
Hurricane (Typhoon) · Aug 30, 2023. Hurricane Idalia made landfall Wednesday morning August 30th around 745 AM EDT along the|Florida Big Bend near Keaton Beach as a category 3, with the inner core moving NE across the|Suwannee River Valley. The inner wind core of Idalia gradually weakened through the morning while,|heavily impacting Suwannee and Hamilton counties in NE Florida and Echols county SE Georgia as the|circulation tracked NE. Widespread tr…
National Weather Service narratives, lightly trimmed. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Every colour on the map above is a place on this drawing: where the ground sits relative to the flood FEMA plans for.
If a building in Suwannee County is in a high-risk zone (A or V) and its mortgage comes from a federally regulated or insured lender, or is federally backed, flood insurance is required.
Outside those zones it is optional, and often worth having: from 2014 to 2024 nearly one-third of NFIP claims came from outside the high-risk Special Flood Hazard Area. Since Risk Rating 2.0, NFIP premiums are set for each building, so the only reliable price is a quote: FloodSmart.gov or a local agent.