Flood history / Pennsylvania / ZIP 16686
ZIP 16686
Blair County, PA
Property owners in ZIP 16686 have been paid $1.2M on 147 National Flood Insurance Program claims between 1978 and 2026 — an average of $8K a claim, across 13 separate years in which someone here filed and was paid.
The heaviest year
2004 is the heaviest year on file: 98 paid claims, 66.7% of the ZIP's total. More than half of everything ever paid here traces to that single year. The largest named event in the record is Tropical Storm Ivan, with 79 claims.
13 of those claims — 8.8% — were filed since 2017. The bulk of this ZIP's record is older than that.
Where the claims sat on the map
Of the 142 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 30 — 21.1% — were on properties rated outside the mapped high-risk area, in a B, C or X zone. Claims here concentrate inside the mapped high-risk area, which is what the maps intend. Flood insurance is not required outside the high-risk zone, and most properties there do not carry it — so these counts come from the minority who did.
The water near this ZIP
The closest gauges publishing official flood thresholds are Little Juniata River at Spruce Creek (6.6 mi), Frankstown Branch Juniata River at Williamsburg (14.5 mi) and Central PA Dams at Glendale Lake (15.7 mi). A gauge describes one point on one river — it will not see street drainage, sewer backup, storm surge or flash flooding.
Read current gauge conditions for 16686 →
What this does not say
These are paid National Flood Insurance Program claims, nothing more. They count insured properties whose owners filed and were paid, so they are a floor on how often this ZIP has flooded — never a measure of how likely it is to flood next. Uninsured flooding leaves no trace here at all.
The figures are aggregates published by FEMA. No individual claim, address or policyholder appears on this page or in the data behind it. Nothing here is a forecast, a warning, or advice about insurance.