Arborlook
Risk & Response
by Arborlook Insights

Carteret County, NC

Community risk profile | NRI Score: 90.3 Very High

69,148
Population
16
Departments
41
Stations
33
Census Tracts

Natural Hazard Loss Profile

Expected annual loss across the 18 natural hazards in FEMA's National Risk Index. Life safety is expressed in fatality-equivalents, combining expected deaths and injuries. Property loss counts building damage only, separate from agriculture.

Natural Hazard Life Safety
0.61
expected fatality-equivalents per year, natural hazards only
32nd highest of 100
Life Safety per 100k
0.88
natural hazard fatality-equivalents per 100,000 residents
31st highest of 100
Natural Hazard Property Loss
$119.8M
expected building loss per year, natural hazards only
6th highest of 100
Property Loss per Resident
$1,733
natural hazard building loss per resident per year
4th highest of 100

These figures cover natural hazards only. Structure fire, EMS, and motor vehicle incidents are not included in the National Risk Index and are not counted here, so this is not an all-cause life safety measure. For Carteret County, the largest single contributor is Hurricane, 44% of the life-safety total.

Carteret County carries an expected under 1 natural hazard fatality-equivalents and $119.8M in building loss per year. Rank chips compare the 100 North Carolina counties. Nationally, Carteret County ranks 922nd of 3,222 U.S. counties for life-safety loss, 1935th for life safety per 100k residents, 175th for property loss, and 26th for property loss per resident. Computed from census tract data covering every resident, independent of fire department boundaries.

Add fire mortality, cause, and loss

Natural hazard exposure is one half of the picture. The other half is what your departments run on: fire deaths and injuries, cause of ignition, dollar loss per incident. That comes from NERIS incident reporting, and it grows as departments serving Carteret County enroll. Our Regional tier brings it together across your jurisdiction, with participating departments, alongside response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Talk to us about Carteret County See what a department sees

What Drives the Loss

93%
Property (buildings): $119.8M (92.9%)
Life safety: $8.4M (6.5%)
Agriculture: $848K (0.7%)

Total expected annual loss: $129,050,003 per year. Life safety is shown here in dollars, at FEMA's $13.7M value of statistical life, so the three shares sum to the total.

Hazards Ranked Two Ways

The hazard that threatens people is often not the hazard that destroys buildings. Both columns cover the same 18 hazards over the same year.

By life-safety loss ($/yr)

Hurricane
$3.7M
Heat Wave
$879K
Inland Flooding
$870K
Lightning
$587K
Cold Wave
$525K
Winter Weather
$453K

By property loss ($/yr)

Hurricane
$105.0M
Inland Flooding
$8.6M
Coastal Flooding
$4.1M
Wildfire
$929K
Tornado
$623K
Ice Storm
$238K

Census Tract Risk Map

Shaded by quintile across the census tracts in Carteret County. Gray tracts have no modeled loss or no resident population. Per-resident figures on this map use the National Risk Index 2020 tract population.

Fire Service Profile

69%
25%
Career: 6% (1)
Combination: 69% (11)
Volunteer: 25% (4)
Residents per Station
1,687
census population per registered station
Stations per 100k
59.3
registered stations per 100,000 residents

Department composition covers the 16 departments registered in NERIS Public for Carteret County, NC. Departments that have not registered are not counted. Station coverage divides census population by registered stations; department service areas overlap, so their populations are not summed.

Department Rankings

Fire and EMS departments serving Carteret County. Click column headers to sort.

NRI Rating is from FEMA's National Risk Index, which measures community risk across 18 natural hazards using expected annual losses, social vulnerability, and community resilience. Life-Safety Loss uses FEMA's Value of Statistical Life ($13.7M per expected fatality) to estimate annual risk to human life.

Department boundaries and station counts are self-reported through NERIS Public and may not reflect current service areas. Population and Life-Safety Loss reflect each department's full jurisdiction. County-level risk metrics are computed from census tract data and are not affected by boundary accuracy. See full methodology.

Showing 16 departments
Department Est. Population Life-Safety Loss NRI Rating Stations
Tryonota Volunteer Fire Department 30,478 $4.2M Relatively Moderate 2
Morehead City Fire-Ems 22,505 $2.7M Very High 6
Western Carteret Fire & Ems Department, Inc. 24,830 $2.5M Very High 3
Newport Fire Department 17,614 $2.0M Very High 4
Beaufort Fire Department 12,767 $1.9M Very High 5
Harlowe Volunteer Fire Department 14,220 $1.8M Very High 3
Broad & Gales Creek Fire Department 11,070 $1.1M Relatively High 2
Swansboro Fire Department 6,275 $705.4K Very High 1
Emerald Isle Fire Department 3,910 $441.5K Very High 3
Cedar Island Volunteer Fire Department 2,031 $389.4K Very High 1
South River Merrimon Fire & Ems 2,031 $389.4K Very High 2
Mill Creek Fire Department 2,243 $290.1K Very High 2
Atlantic Beach Fire Department 1,754 $209.0K Very High 2
Pine Knoll Shores Fire & Ems 1,295 $153.4K Very High 2
Harkers Island Fire & Rescue, Inc. 1,060 $136.8K Very High 1
Indian Beach-Salter Path Fire Department 419 $49.7K Very High 2
No departments match your search.

Risk Snapshot

10.1%
Poverty Rate
27.0%
Age 65+
17.5%
Disability Rate
8.1%
Uninsured
29.3%
Pre-1980 Housing
16.5%
Mobile Homes
38.7%
Vacancy Rate
0.4%
Wood Heat
$74,022
Median HH Income

FEMA Disaster Declarations

15
Last 10 Years
22
Last 25 Years
Hurricane
Most Frequent

Response-level intelligence for your region

Our Regional tier gives county fire authorities and state fire marshals rollup dashboards across all departments in your jurisdiction: response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Explore the Regional Tier See the Response Demo