9,879 flood insurance claims·$99.3M paid·14 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 Brunswick County, North Carolina. 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 summer thunderstorms and tropical systems dominates the flood history of Brunswick County, North Carolina, supported by 96 recorded flash flood events and 40 standard flood events over the last thirty years. Recent events illustrate this pattern, including severe coastal trough thunderstorms that caused flash flooding on May 27, 2025, and Potential Tropical Cyclone #8 on September 16, 2024, which brought historic rainfall amounts and extensive flash flooding after moving inland near the NC/SC border.
National Flood Insurance Program records indicate that high-risk areas bear the brunt of claims. Zone A accounts for 5,156 claims with an average payout of $14,435 and an average recorded water depth of 4 inches, while Zone V accounts for 3,784 claims with an average payout of $13,912 and an average recorded water depth of 5 inches. Zone X properties also face significant impacts, recording 805 claims with a higher average payout of $37,642 and an average water depth of 7 inches, alongside smaller totals in shaded and unshaded Zone X categories.
Property owners in Zone A and Zone V, as well as residents in Zone X areas experiencing higher payout severity, should pay the most attention to flood risk.
Summary written from NOAA storm reports and NFIP claims for this county. Not a prediction.
1% of Brunswick County’s flood insurance claims were on properties rated outside FEMA’s high-risk zones.
9,042 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 5 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 1999, with 1,784 claims and $18.0M paid, the year of Hurricane Dennis, Hurricane Floyd and Hurricane Floyd Major Disaster Declarations.
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.
67 NOAA storm reports from Brunswick County describe what happened, in the words of the forecasters who covered it. Read the North Carolina flood stories →
35 federal disaster declarations since 1984, 14 of them floods, coastal storms or hurricanes.
| Disaster | Began |
|---|---|
| Severe Winter Storm | Jan 21, 2026 |
| Sunset Drive Fire | May 2, 2025 |
| Hurricane Helene | Sep 25, 2024 |
| Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight | Sep 16, 2024 |
| Tropical Storm Debby | Aug 5, 2024 |
| Hurricane Ian | Sep 28, 2022 |
| Hurricane Isaias | Jul 31, 2020 |
| Hurricane Dorian | Sep 1, 2019 |
Weather and water disasters only; most recent first. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations.
161 since 1996: 96 flash floods, 40 river or area floods and 7 coastal floods or surges.
| Event | Date | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | May 27, 2025 | — |
| Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | — · 1 killed |
| Flash Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | $10,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | $50,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | $3,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | $5,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | $1,000 |
| Flash Flood | Sep 16, 2024 | $15,000 |
— = no damage estimate in the record. Source: NOAA Storm Events Database.
Flash Flood · May 27, 2025. Showers and thunderstorms along a coastal trough began training over the same small area leading to flash flooding.
Flood · Sep 16, 2024. Potential Tropical Cyclone #8 located off the SC coast was classified by the National Hurricane Center on September 15 and a Tropical Storm Warning was issued for the entire coast of southeast NC and northeast SC at that time. The system slowly moved toward the coast but never became organized enough to be classified as a tropical (or subtropical) cyclone, eventually moving inland around the NC/SC border on Septem…
Flash Flood · Sep 16, 2024. Potential Tropical Cyclone #8 located off the SC coast was classified by the National Hurricane Center on September 15 and a Tropical Storm Warning was issued for the entire coast of southeast NC and northeast SC at that time. The system slowly moved toward the coast but never became organized enough to be classified as a tropical (or subtropical) cyclone, eventually moving inland around the NC/SC border on Septem…
Flash Flood · Aug 9, 2024. After making landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane on August 5, Debby weakened to a tropical storm as it slowly moved across southeastern Georgia and offshore before making another landfall along the central SC coast between Charleston and Georgetown. The storm then moved northwest to near the SC/NC border and weakened to a tropical depression on August 8 before quickly becoming a non-…
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 Brunswick 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.