Is My Address in the Flood Zone?
Type an address to see its zone on FEMA's current flood map for Bisbee — what the code means, and whether a mortgage here requires flood insurance.
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Type an address to see its zone on FEMA's current flood map for Bisbee — what the code means, and whether a mortgage here requires flood insurance.
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Type a Bisbee address to see its flood zone on FEMA's current effective map, in plain words. The canyon floor through Old Bisbee is mapped as high-risk and most of Warren is not — and which side of that line an address falls on decides whether a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance.
Every FEMA panel covering Bisbee — 04003C2508F over Old Bisbee, 04003C2517F over Warren, 04003C2518F over San Jose — has an effective date of 28 August 2008. It maps the 1%-annual-chance flood, not the monsoon. Tombstone Canyon and Brewery Gulch funnel flash floods through the middle of town most Julys and Augusts, and a minimal-hazard zone on an 18-year-old map is not a promise a street stays dry; it is what the federal map currently says about a major flood. For what is happening this week, see this town's Storm & Flash-Flood Warnings page.
If an address falls in a Special Flood Hazard Area — a zone code starting with A or V — a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance, and it is not part of a homeowners policy. Zone X does not forbid flooding; a large share of flood claims nationally come from outside the high-risk zones. It only means the cover is not federally required. In a canyon town where the water arrives in minutes, that distinction is worth understanding before you decline it.
The flood walls, the masonry channels and the hundreds of check dams above town are New Deal-era work, built after repeated washouts, and the old Copper Queen drainage tunnel under the business district is part of the same system. It is why the canyon is passable at all in a storm — and why the mapped high-risk strip follows the road rather than spreading across the hillsides.
Zone results come live from FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer (the current effective flood map), with addresses located by the US Census Bureau’s public geocoder. Maps get revised; the official record is always the FEMA Map Service Center.
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