Flood history / Iowa / ZIP 51012
ZIP 51012
Cherokee County, IA
Property owners in ZIP 51012 have been paid $1.7M on 140 National Flood Insurance Program claims between 1979 and 2024 — an average of $12K a claim, across 12 separate years in which someone here filed and was paid.
The heaviest year
2013 is the heaviest year on file: 39 paid claims, 27.9% 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 June Midwest Flooding, with 14 claims.
27 of those claims — 19.3% — were filed since 2017. The pattern here is still active.
| Named event | Paid claims | Share of record |
|---|---|---|
| June Midwest Flooding | 14 | 10.0% |
| Midwest Flooding | 14 | 10.0% |
| March 2019 Midwest Flooding | 8 | 5.7% |
Where the claims sat on the map
Of the 137 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 10 — 7.3% — 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 Sioux River at Cherokee (0.4 mi), Mill Creek (NW IA) near Larrabee (6.7 mi) and Waterman Creek near Sutherland (16.8 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 51012 →
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.