Mapping

Flooding is America's number one natural disaster, and all it takes is a few inches of water to cause major damage to your home and its contents. Flooding can happen anywhere, but certain areas are especially prone to serious flooding. To help communities understand their risk, FEMA develops flood maps (Flood Insurance Rate Maps, FIRMs) to show the locations of high-risk, moderate-to-low risk and undetermined-risk areas. These maps and flood boundaries are developed through geographical and historical data, and using hydraulic and hydrologic analysis. These are the maps used by citizens, government, insurance agents and banks to determine the risk of flood and whether flood insurance is required.

FEMA Map Service Center

The FEMA Flood Map Service Center (MSC) is the official online public source for flood hazard information produced in support of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Use the MSC to find your official flood map, access a range of other flood hazard related products such as Letter of Map Changes.

Tennessee Property Viewer

The State of Tennessee Strategic Technology Services (STS) - Geographic Information System (GIS) provides this website to allow for searching and displaying property ownership and location of flood hazard information. The website is available for 85 of Tennessee’s 95 counties. If your county is not listed on this website, please visit your county’s website to obtain your local property information.

Instructions:

  1. Go to the TN Interactive Map website.
  2. Choose a county.
  3. Choose a search type: Parcel number, Owner Name, Property Address, and Subdivision.
  4. Click Search.
  5. Click Show FEMA DFIRM Flood Map. This will show if any special flood hazard area exists on the property which would be the blue shaded area.
  6. In addition, you can click on the Aerial Photography button to see the location of structures and access points.

National Flood Hazard Layer (NFHL) Viewer

In the NFHL Viewer, you can use the address search or map navigation to locate an area of interest and the NFHL Print Tool to download and print a full Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) or FIRMette (a smaller, printable version of a FIRM) where modernized data exists.

Changes Since Last FIRM (Viewer)

The Changes Since Last FIRM (CSLF) dataset provides information on changes made to the floodplain and floodway boundaries resulting from an updated flood mapping study. This dataset helps community officials to easily visualize changes in flood risk through color shading to highlight areas where the floodplain and floodway have increased or decreased.

The CSLF dataset can help community leaders, planners, and other municipal staff understand which areas are now at greater risk and should, therefore, be targeted and prioritized for mitigation projects. With this information, community officials can also educate residents and business owners about steps they can take to minimize their risk from this natural hazard.