So, even if you are outside of the 100-year flood zone, you are likely close to the 100-year flood zone, and therefore you are carrying almost the same risk but the insurance cost is very low. It’s a bare minimum standard and it doesn’t mean you won’t flood. Being in or out of the 100-year flood zone is just the requirement for mandatory flood insurance purchase. A 1% annual risk of being flooded was the line FEMA drew. If you are close to the 100-year flood, your risk may not have been significantly reduced.Ī line had to be drawn somewhere to make the FEMA flood maps. So we are really all in a flood zone of some sort and it's just a matter of which one. With enough rain, anything will flood, and we still can’t predict the weather very well. But maybe you are now in the 0.99% annual chance flood zone or the 0.75% annual chance flood zone. the 1% flood) that you are safe from flooding. You might look at a FEMA flood map and think that because you are on the outside of the 100-year flood zone line (e.g. You could roll snake eyes twice in a row or never see it in 100 rolls. You could see many "100-year" floods in the same town in the same year because it's just a statistical average based on past precipitation records and we never know what mother nature will do. And that's a pretty reasonable thing to say when we use the "100-year-flood" term all the time rather than putting the meaning behind it. People say all the time that their property hasn't flooded in 100 years so there's no way it's in a 100-year flood zone. Try saying "zero point two percent annual chance flood zone" two dozen times a day and you can see why we use the short version. Since 1% is also "1 out of 100", the term "100-year flood" was adopted because that's easier to talk about than rattling off a bunch of statistics.įEMA sometimes shows a 500-year flood on their maps and that is technically the 0.2% annual chance flood. It means there is a 1% chance you will see a flood like the one on the FEMA flood map each and every year. But it doesn't mean what you might think. I use the term “100-year flood zone daily for elevation certificates, LOMA’s, and explaining flood maps.
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