klepZ HighWater

Flood history / North Carolina / ZIP 28472

ZIP 28472
Columbus County, NC

Paid claims2551983–2025
Total paid$10.0M$39K average
Heaviest year201891 claims
Outside high-risk zone26%of claims with a rated zone

Property owners in ZIP 28472 have been paid $10.0M on 255 National Flood Insurance Program claims between 1983 and 2025 — an average of $39K a claim, across 19 separate years in which someone here filed and was paid.

The heaviest year

2018 is the heaviest year on file: 91 paid claims, 35.7% of the ZIP's total. That one year accounts for more than a quarter of the ZIP's entire record. The largest named event in the record is Hurricane Florence, with 89 claims.

147 of those claims — 57.6% — were filed since 2017. This is not a historical record — most of it is recent.

Named eventPaid claimsShare of record
Hurricane Florence8934.9%
Hurricane Matthew4116.1%
Hurricane Floyd2610.2%

Where the claims sat on the map

Of the 231 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 61 — 26.4% — were on properties rated outside the mapped high-risk area, in a B, C or X zone. Being outside the high-risk zone has not meant much here. 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 Soules Swamp below Whiteville (1.5 mi), Waccamaw River at Dock Road (11.9 mi) and Waccamaw River at Freeland (16.3 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 28472 →

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.

Other North Carolina ZIP codes on file

  • 28450 Columbus County · 210 claims
  • 28445 Pender County · 5,547 claims
  • 27889 Beaufort County · 3,789 claims
  • 27810 Beaufort County · 3,731 claims
  • 28480 New Hanover County · 3,560 claims
  • 27949 Dare County · 3,507 claims
  • 28560 Craven County · 3,202 claims
  • 27959 Dare County · 3,109 claims

All North Carolina ZIP codes →