Mettler’s biggest natural hazard is earthquakes
Most of the natural-hazard damage FEMA expects in Mettler comes from earthquakes, and overall the risk is very high for a U.S. community.
What stands out about Mettler’s weather risks
Read from FEMA’s records below. The page puts what stands out first.
Does Mettler flood? No paid flood claims on record
FEMA’s records show no paid flood insurance claims in Mettler. That’s not a promise: most homes don’t carry flood insurance, so small floods go unrecorded.
Mettler isn’t in FEMA’s Community Rating System, which cuts flood insurance up to 45% in towns that do extra flood-proofing.
Insurance rates: Kern County.How exposed is Mettler?
FEMA expects yearly storm and flood damage to homes and buildings here to be higher than in 88% of U.S. communities, mostly from earthquakes and inland flooding.
Calmer than 848 of the 1,619 California towns we cover.
Mettler is smaller than a census tract, so it shares the figures of the tract around its center.
What Mettler faces
Each hazard’s share of the damage FEMA expects here, and how it compares with the rest of the country.
Earthquakes
Inland flooding
Heat waves
Federal disasters declared here
None of the disasters declared for Kern County shows FEMA aid or repair money reaching Mettler itself in FEMA’s records.
Kern County has had 37 natural disasters declared since 1953, most often fires and floods.
Get ready for what Mettler actually faces
A short kit for its top hazards, what to check before you buy, and where neighbors get alerts.
- Drop, cover and hold on.
- Strap tall furniture and the water heater to the wall.
- Know how to shut off the gas.
- Turn around at flooded roads: a foot of moving water can carry off a car.
- Flood insurance usually takes 30 days to start, so buy it before the forecast.
- Keep papers and medicines up high, in a grab-and-go bag.
- Know the nearest cooling center or air-conditioned library.
- Drink water before you feel thirsty.
- Check on neighbors who live alone.
- Look up the address on FEMA’s flood map.
- Ask the seller or landlord whether it has ever flooded, and what flood insurance costs there.
- Get a flood insurance quote early: policies usually start 30 days after you buy.
Know where neighbors sign up for alerts? Add it to the Handbook so everyone has it.
Most disasters here begin in December–February
The month each of Kern County’s 37 declared disasters began, since 1953.
What these numbers can and can’t tell you
- An average, not a forecast. FEMA’s National Risk Index estimates the damage 18 kinds of natural hazards cause in a typical year, from decades of records and models. A quiet decade can follow a bad year.
- Compared by rate. “Higher than N%” compares yearly damage as a share of what’s there, so a big city isn’t rated riskier just for having more buildings.
- Money that reached town. Flood claims are matched to Mettler’s own flood-insurance community; household aid to the registrant’s city; repair grants to Mettler.
- It follows property value. FEMA’s model weighs damage to buildings, so a place that recently lost many homes can rate lower than it feels.
Storm stories
Memories, warnings and help from neighbors in Mettler.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Sources: FEMA National Risk Index (December 2025); OpenFEMA: NFIP redacted claims, multiple-loss properties, community status book and residential penetration rates, housing assistance (owners and renters), public assistance funded projects, hazard mitigation properties and disaster declarations. Census tracts: U.S. Census Bureau. Weather alerts: National Weather Service. Preparedness tips: Ready.gov. An average of past damage, not a forecast.