Lowest Physical-Risk Metros

The supporting columns show on a wider screen, and every column is in the CSV.

Methodology

Metros are ranked by the AreaProfile Physical Resilience signal: 70% FEMA’s expected annual loss rate, inverted, and 30% the FEMA community resilience percentile, both aggregated from component counties by population weighting. A higher score means lower exposure. The loss rate is used rather than FEMA’s composite risk index on purpose: the composite folds social vulnerability and community resilience into the hazard itself, so a wealthy county in a hurricane path can score as low risk. Both of those measures are worth knowing and are published separately on every profile; neither answers the question of how much damage the hazards do.

What is excluded, and why

Metropolitan areas under 500,000 residents. FEMA does not endorse this ranking; the underlying hazard scores are FEMA data, the resilience signal and this ordering are AreaProfile calculations.

The top 40 of the 109 metros that meet these criteria are listed.

Sources

• Federal Emergency Management Agency — National Risk Index (1.20.0)

Full details of how signals and the Area Score are calculated are on the methodology page, and how rankings like this one are built and reviewed is on the editorial policy page.