Thousands of U.S. homes have flooded over and over again. Here’s where.
‘What we are seeing is flooding is increasing faster than we are mitigating our risk,’ one analyst says of data from the National Flood Insurance Program

By Brady Dennis and Harry Stevens
January 9, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. EST



Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency, Natural Resources Defense Council

The number of U.S. properties that have flooded numerous times continues to rise, according to newly released federal data, in the latest sign of the nation’s mounting flood risk.

Figures show that the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which covers millions of homeowners across the nation, now has on its books at least 44,000 structures where damage has been covered again and again by taxpayers, in some cases with cumulative payouts that exceed a property’s worth.

One property in Virginia Beach has flooded 52 times — including four floods in 2020 and another two in 2021 — with total payments amounting to $784,967. Another property on the Outer Banks of North Carolina has flooded 44 times, with payments totaling more than $2.2 million. There are 30 properties that have flooded at least 30 times, the data shows.

Properties that have repeatedly flooded account for only a small fraction — about 1 percent — of the flood insurance program’s nearly 5 million active policies across more than 22,000 communities. But they are responsible for more than 10 percent of the agency’s claims, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group that sought the updated records from the federal government and maintains an online dashboard that tracks the issue. ... “Essentially, what we are seeing is flooding is increasing faster than we are mitigating our risk,” said Anna Weber, an NRDC senior policy analyst.



Signs warn potential home buyers about flooding issues in the Starcreek Circle neighborhood of Myrtle Beach, S.C., in 2022. (Madeline Gray for The Washington Post)

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Atlantic Ocean waves wash past Seagull Street’s beachfront houses in Rodanthe, N.C., in 2022. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

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By Brady Dennis
Brady Dennis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on the environment and public health. He previously spent years covering the nation’s economy. Twitter https://twitter.com/brady_dennis

By Harry Stevens
Harry Stevens is the Climate Lab columnist at The Washington Post. He was part of a team at The Post that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the series “2C: Beyond the Limit.” Twitter https://twitter.com/Harry_Stevens