5 flood insurance claims·$13,732 paid·4 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 Elbert County, Georgia. 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.
Flash flooding and inland flooding driven by heavy rainfall and slow-moving frontal systems dominate the flood risk in Elbert County. Over the last 30 years, the NOAA Storm Events Database has recorded 16 flash flood events, 10 flood events, and 1 tropical storm event.
Recent flood events illustrate this hazard. In January 2024, a major frontal system brought widespread rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches in roughly 12 hours, causing flooding along larger streams. This followed a January 2023 event where Gulf moisture and a dynamic frontal system dropped 3 to 4.5 inches of rain across the Piedmont, resulting in flooding specifically along Beaverdam Creek in Elbert County. Additionally, tropical systems have impacted the area, as seen with Tropical Storm Helene in September 2024. Federal Emergency Management Agency records show 5 National Flood Insurance Program claims in Zone UNKNOWN, with an average payout of $3,433 and an average recorded water depth of 1 inch.
Homeowners, real estate agents, and journalists should pay the most attention to properties located near streams, creeks, and rivers, as well as properties in unmapped or unknown flood zones where historical claims have occurred with shallow water depths.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
In flood insurance claims here that reported a flood depth, the average was 1 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 1983, with 2 claims and $6,954 paid.
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.
9 NOAA storm reports from Elbert County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Georgia flood stories →
16 federal disaster declarations since 1977, 4 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Severe Winter Storm | Jan 22, 2026 |
| Hurricane Helene | Sep 24, 2024 |
| Hurricane Michael | Oct 9, 2018 |
| Hurricane Irma | Sep 7, 2017 |
| Severe Winter Storm | Feb 15, 2015 |
| Severe Winter Storm | Feb 10, 2014 |
| Hurricane Katrina Evacuation | Aug 27, 2005 |
| Hurricane Ivan | Sep 14, 2004 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
27 since 1996: 16 flash floods and 10 river or area floods.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Tropical Storm | Sep 27, 2024 | $1.5M |
| Flood | Jan 10, 2024 | $1,000 |
| Flood | Jan 4, 2023 | $1,000 |
| Flood | Oct 7, 2021 | $20,000 |
| Flash Flood | Oct 7, 2021 | $250,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 17, 2020 | $5,000 |
| Flood | Feb 7, 2020 | $25,000 |
| Flash Flood | Feb 6, 2020 | $5,000 |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Tropical Storm · Sep 27, 2024. Tropical Cyclone Helene began organizing over the western Caribbean on the 23rd and 24th of September before rapidly intensifying as it moved north through the eastern Gulf of Mexico on the 25th and 26th. A plume of moisture extending from the intensifying storm interacted with a slow-moving cold front to produce a band of widespread heavy rain showers and embedded scattered thunderstorms over the southern Appalac…
Flood · Jan 10, 2024. A major/complex frontal system brought widespread rain with embedded thunderstorms to northeast Georgia, mainly during the late morning and afternoon of the 9th. Widespread rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches (with locally higher amounts) in around 12 hours resulted in flooding along a couple of larger streams.
Flood · Jan 4, 2023. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico combined with a dynamic frontal system to produce a prolonged period of moderate to heavy rain across northeast Georgia throughout the third and into the morning of the fourth. By the time the rain tapered off, 3 to 4.5 inches had fallen across much of the Piedmont. This resulted in flooding along Beaverdam Creek in Elbert County.
Flood · Oct 7, 2021. A slow moving area of upper level low pressure over the Mid-Mississippi Valley pumped semi-tropical weather into north Georgia for a couple of days, resulting in occasional rounds of moderate to heavy in the day leading up to the 7th. Scattered slow-moving thunderstorm clusters developed over the Piedmont during the morning of the 7th, producing torrential rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour and total rainfal…
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 Elbert 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.