Hat Island’s biggest natural hazard is earthquakes
Most of the natural-hazard damage FEMA expects in Hat Island comes from earthquakes, and overall the risk is very high for a U.S. community.
What stands out about Hat Island’s weather risks
Read from FEMA’s records below. The page puts what stands out first.
What Hat Island faces
Each hazard’s share of the damage FEMA expects here, and how it compares with the rest of the country.
Earthquakes
Coastal flooding
Inland flooding
How exposed is Hat Island?
FEMA expects yearly storm and flood damage to homes and buildings here to be higher than in 91% of U.S. communities, mostly from earthquakes and coastal flooding.
Rated higher than 551 of the 639 Washington towns we cover.
Hat Island is smaller than a census tract, so it shares the figures of the tract around its center.
Does Hat Island flood? No paid flood claims on record
FEMA’s records show no paid flood insurance claims in Hat Island. That’s not a promise: most homes don’t carry flood insurance, so small floods go unrecorded.
Hat Island isn’t in FEMA’s Community Rating System, which cuts flood insurance up to 45% in towns that do extra flood-proofing.
Insurance rates: Snohomish County.Federal disasters declared here
None of the disasters declared for Snohomish County shows FEMA aid or repair money reaching Hat Island itself in FEMA’s records.
Snohomish County has had 33 natural disasters declared since 1953, most often severe storms and floods.
Get ready for what Hat Island 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.
- Know your evacuation zone and the way off the coast.
- Storm surge comes fast: leave when you’re told, not when the water arrives.
- Move cars to high ground before king tides and nor’easters.
- 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.
- 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 November–January
The month each of Snohomish County’s 33 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 Hat Island’s own flood-insurance community; household aid to the registrant’s city; repair grants to Hat Island.
- 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 Hat Island.
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. Preparedness tips: Ready.gov. An average of past damage, not a forecast.