FloodFireCheck

Methodology and sources

FloodFireCheck turns public flood data into short neighborhood answers. We do not model risk, score properties, or label any place safe or unsafe. We report what public records show and link to each source.

Neighborhood boundaries

Miami pages use the City of Miami’s published neighborhood polygons (City of Miami, Miami Neighborhoods (ArcGIS feature service)). We prioritize neighborhoods that StrollPlace covers and that have enough flood insurance claims for the numbers to mean something.

Broad areas

Some places people search for, such as Brickell, Coconut Grove, Downtown Miami, the Upper East Side and Little Havana, are common names rather than one official boundary; the City of Miami splits them into several smaller named neighborhoods. For these broad-area pages we combine a stated list of official City of Miami neighborhood polygons into one area and compute every number for the combined area. Each broad-area page lists exactly which neighborhoods it includes and links to their own pages, and those pages link back.

Flood zones

We intersect each neighborhood polygon with FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer flood hazard zones (FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer (NFHL), Flood Hazard Zones and FIRM Panels). If FEMA’s map server is unavailable when a Miami page is built, we use Miami-Dade County’s published copy of the FEMA flood zones (Miami-Dade County GIS, FEMA Flood Zone feature layer (county copy of FEMA flood hazard zones)), and the page names the source used. We compute the share of area in each zone using an equal-area projection (EPSG:5070). “High-risk” means the Special Flood Hazard Area (zones beginning with A or V). Zone X is split into shaded (0.2-percent-annual-chance) and unshaded (minimal). We also list the effective date of the FIRM panels involved. Zone definitions follow the FEMA Glossary: Flood Zones.

Flood insurance claims

We download every OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims v3 record for Miami-Dade County (FEMA OpenFEMA Dataset: FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims - v3). FEMA redacts addresses; the finest location in the data is the Census block group (2010 boundaries, field censusGeoid). A block group is counted for a neighborhood when at least 25% of the block group’s area is inside the neighborhood, or at least 25% of the neighborhood’s area is inside the block group (U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb, 2010 Census Block Groups). Because block groups do not follow neighborhood lines, counts can include some properties just outside a neighborhood, and adjacent neighborhoods can share a block group. Block groups along Biscayne Bay include open water, so when we judge how well the selected block groups fit a neighborhood we also measure the fit on land only, using the Census Bureau’s land and water areas for each block group. Paid amounts are the sum of building, contents and Increased Cost of Compliance payments in nominal dollars. Claims only exist where a property had NFIP coverage, so they understate total flooding.

Flood insurance policies

We tried to add counts of NFIP policies in force from FEMA’s OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Policies v3 dataset, but FEMA’s API timed out (HTTP 503) on block-group queries when we built these pages, so policy counts are not shown. We will add them if the endpoint becomes reliable.

What these numbers cannot tell you

Updates

FEMA refreshes the claims dataset about monthly. Each page shows the dataset “as of” date and the date the page was last updated. New neighborhoods are added regularly.

FEMA notice

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s). No FEMA logos or seals are used. (OpenFEMA Terms and Conditions)

About StrollPlace links

Each neighborhood page links to that neighborhood’s page on StrollPlace, a site that helps people learn an area before they move. We only use StrollPlace links found on StrollPlace’s own Miami pages and confirmed to load directly; where a neighborhood has no StrollPlace page, we link to StrollPlace’s Miami page instead. There are no affiliate links on this site.

Privacy

This site sets no cookies and runs no advertising or tracking scripts. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, a cookieless, privacy-first page-view counter, to see which pages are read.