Flood history / Iowa / ZIP 50317
ZIP 50317
Polk County, IA
Property owners in ZIP 50317 have been paid $9.0M on 201 National Flood Insurance Program claims between 1979 and 2026 — an average of $45K a claim, across 18 separate years in which someone here filed and was paid.
The heaviest year
2010 is the heaviest year on file: 62 paid claims, 30.8% 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 Midwest Flooding, with 12 claims.
65 of those claims — 32.3% — were filed since 2017. The pattern here is still active.
| Named event | Paid claims | Share of record |
|---|---|---|
| Midwest Flooding | 12 | 6.0% |
| Storm | 2 | 1.0% |
Where the claims sat on the map
Of the 196 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 81 — 41.3% — 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 Fourmile Creek at Des Moines Easton Blvd (0.4 mi), Des Moines River at Des Moines 2nd Ave (3.7 mi) and Des Moines River at Des Moines SE 6th St (4.0 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 50317 →
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.