US Cities With the Lowest Natural-Hazard Risk

Cities ranked by the AreaProfile Physical Resilience signal

Large cities with the least exposure to floods, storms, fire and other natural hazards, derived from the FEMA National Risk Index. This is not a measure of crime.

50 locations · Calculated September 26, 2026 · Download CSV

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

Narrow to one state

50 places, ranked nationally.

#	City	Score	Top hazard	Fema risk index
1	Milwaukee, WI	98.4	Cold wave	98
2	Washington, DC	97.3	Heat wave	98
3	Boston, MA	97.2	Lightning	94
4	Cleveland, OH	97.2	Cold wave	98
5	Madison, WI	97.0	Cold wave	94
6	Ann Arbor, MI	96.1	Strong wind	89
7	Rochester, NY	96.1	Cold wave	94
8	South Bend, IN	95.4	Cold wave	86
9	Columbia, MD	95.2	Winter weather	72
10	Green Bay, WI	94.5	Cold wave	90
11	Grand Rapids, MI	94.2	Strong wind	92
12	Albany, NY	94.0	Landslide	86
13	Minneapolis, MN	93.3	Cold wave	98
14	St. Paul, MN	93.2	Cold wave	95
15	Virginia Beach, VA	92.2	Heat wave	58
16	Quincy, MA	92.0	Inland flooding	92
17	Hampton, VA	91.9	Hurricane	62
18	Baltimore, MD	91.3	Heat wave	95
19	Waco, TX	90.6	Tornado	91
20	Akron, OH	90.2	Hail	91
21	Spokane Valley, WA	89.3	Cold wave	90
22	Spokane, WA	89.3	Cold wave	90
23	Tyler, TX	89.2	Heat wave	84
24	Cincinnati, OH	89.0	Tornado	96
25	Syracuse, NY	88.9	Strong wind	91
26	New Bedford, MA	88.9	Inland flooding	90
27	Des Moines, IA	88.9	Strong wind	91
28	Brockton, MA	88.7	Coastal flooding	90
29	Cambridge, MA	88.2	Ice storm	97
Also rank 29, tied	Lowell, MA	88.2	Ice storm	97
31	Peoria, IL	87.9	Cold wave	91
32	Billings, MT	86.8	Winter weather	84
33	Toledo, OH	86.5	Tornado	92
34	Sandy Springs, GA	85.5	Lightning	96
35	Worcester, MA	85.4	Ice storm	94
36	Yonkers, NY	85.3	Strong wind	96
37	Round Rock, TX	85.2	Hail	91
38	Dayton, OH	85.1	Strong wind	92
39	Cedar Rapids, IA	85.1	Strong wind	87
40	Macon-Bibb County, GA	84.8	Heat wave	70
41	Lansing, MI	84.6	Strong wind	84
42	Newport News, VA	84.5	Hurricane	72
43	South Fulton, GA	83.9	Lightning	95
44	Arlington, VA	83.7	Heat wave	67
45	Atlanta, GA	83.2	Lightning	96
46	Sioux Falls, SD	83.2	Ice storm	87
47	Olathe, KS	83.2	Winter weather	95
48	Joliet, IL	83.1	Cold wave	95
49	Overland Park, KS	83.0	Winter weather	94
50	Meridian, ID	82.2	Winter weather	88

Methodology

Cities 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 the counties a city overlaps 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 city 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.

Some entries here hold the same value and therefore the same rank. Where that happens the rank is printed once and the rows beneath it are left blank, because the order they appear in carries no meaning — there is nothing in the measurements to separate them.

What is excluded, and why

Cities under 100,000 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 50 of the 351 cities 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.