Flood history / Texas / ZIP 78542
ZIP 78542
Hidalgo County, TX
Property owners in ZIP 78542 have been paid $2.4M on 128 National Flood Insurance Program claims between 1979 and 2026 — an average of $19K a claim, across 15 separate years in which someone here filed and was paid.
The heaviest year
2020 is the heaviest year on file: 32 paid claims, 25.0% 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 Dolly, with 30 claims.
52 of those claims — 40.6% — were filed since 2017. This is not a historical record — most of it is recent.
| Named event | Paid claims | Share of record |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane Dolly | 30 | 23.4% |
| Hurricane Hanna | 29 | 22.7% |
| Tropical Storm Bill | 19 | 14.8% |
Where the claims sat on the map
Of the 121 claims here that record a rated flood zone, 97 — 80.2% — were on properties rated outside the mapped high-risk area, in a B, C or X zone. Most of the paid flooding in this ZIP happened to properties the maps did not treat as high risk. 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 North Floodway West of Mercedes (22.3 mi), Rio Grande at Anzalduas Reservior (25.8 mi) and Rio Grande near San Benito (35.7 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 78542 →
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.