ZIP 28778
Buncombe County, NC

The heaviest year

2024 is the heaviest year on file: 69 paid claims, 66.3% 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 Hurricane Helene, with 68 claims.

77 of those claims — 74.0% — were filed since 2017. This is not a historical record — most of it is recent.

Named event	Paid claims	Share of record
Hurricane Helene	68	65.4%
Tropical Storm Ivan	7	6.7%
Tropical Storm Fred	5	4.8%

Where the claims sat on the map

Of the 104 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 45 — 43.3% — 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 Flat Creek (NC) above Flat Creek Rd. 1 SW Montreat (5.1 mi), Swannanoa River below Hendersonville Rd (NC 81), in Biltmore Village (2 S Asheville) (8.8 mi) and French Broad River at Pearson Bridge Rd, 2 NW Asheville (10.1 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 28778 →

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.