3 flood insurance claims·$51,649 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 Itawamba County, Mississippi. 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 from severe weather and slow-moving thunderstorms dominates the flood history of Itawamba County. Over the last 30 years, NOAA records show 16 flash flood events, alongside 4 general flood events and 3 tropical storm impacts.
Recent occurrences illustrate these risks. Heavy rainfall from slow-moving scattered convection caused flash flooding on June 1, 2024. A few days later, on June 5, 2024, a mesoscale convective vortex interacting with a moist, unstable airmass produced additional flash flooding alongside isolated damaging winds and a weak tornado. Earlier significant events include a cold season convective system on January 11, 2020, and severe thunderstorm development driven by an upper low on March 15, 2025.
National Flood Insurance Program records indicate that historical claims are concentrated in high-risk Special Flood Hazard Areas, specifically Zone A, which recorded 3 claims with an average payout of $25,825 and an average recorded water depth of 1 inch. Homeowners, real estate agents, and journalists should pay the closest attention to properties located within Zone A and other low-lying areas susceptible to rapid runoff and intense seasonal rainfall.
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.
11 NOAA storm reports from Itawamba County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the Mississippi flood stories →
26 federal disaster declarations since 1973, 4 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Severe Winter Storm | Jan 23, 2026 |
| Severe Storms, Straight-line Winds, Tornadoes, And Flooding | Mar 14, 2025 |
| Severe Storms, Straight-line Winds, And Tornadoes. | Jun 14, 2023 |
| Hurricane Ida | Aug 28, 2021 |
| Severe Storm, Straight-line Winds, And Flooding | Oct 26, 2019 |
| Severe Storms, Tornadoes, Straight-line Winds, And Flooding | Apr 13, 2019 |
| Severe Storms, Straight-line Winds, Tornadoes, And Flooding | Feb 22, 2019 |
| Severe Storms, Tornadoes, Straight-line Winds, And Flooding | Dec 23, 2015 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
23 since 1996: 16 flash floods and 4 river or area floods.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | Mar 15, 2025 | $100,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jun 5, 2024 | — |
| Flash Flood | Jun 1, 2024 | $10,000 |
| Flash Flood | Jan 11, 2020 | $50,000 |
| Flood | Feb 22, 2019 | — |
| Flood | Feb 22, 2019 | $206,000 |
| Flash Flood | Dec 25, 2015 | $25,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 2, 2012 | — |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flash Flood · Mar 15, 2025. An upper low over the Central Plains moved into the Upper Mississippi Valley during the evening hours of Friday, March 14, 2025. Increasing moisture advection ahead of an approaching cold front lifted dewpoints into the low to mid 60s. This coupled with increasing height falls and a mid-level 80 knot jet rotating around the main upper low supported severe thunderstorm development. Large looping hodographs, MLCAPE…
Flash Flood · Jun 5, 2024. A mesoscale convective vortex moved across the Mid-South during the late afternoon and early evening on June 5, 2024. This feature interacted with a moist and unstable airmass to produce scattered thunderstorms across northeast Mississippi. Surface-based convective available potential energy values of 3000 J/kg and precipitable water values around 1.75 inches resulted in flash flooding, isolated damaging wind, and…
Flash Flood · Jun 1, 2024. A weak surface low was situated near St. Louis, Missouri with a quasi-stationary front extending southeast into West Tennessee and northern Alabama. Aloft, a broad shortwave trough was present over the Lower Mississippi Valley. Isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms developed across the region as surface heating intensified on June 1, 2024. Slow-moving scattered convection continued into the evening hours…
Flash Flood · Jan 11, 2020. A cold season quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) moved across the Mid-South during the overnight and early morning hours Saturday, January 11, 2020. Strong southerly winds drew unseasonably warm, moist air northward into the region ahead of a cold front. Early morning temperatures were in the upper 60s and lower 70s with dewpoints in the upper 60s. This aided in the development of uncapped surface-based instabi…
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 Itawamba 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.