01 · READ
OCR on scans
Scanned, decades-old studies turned into searchable, machine-readable text.
Flood Insurance Studies · digitized
The data inside FEMA flood studies, finally usable.
FEMA Flood Insurance Studies hold the numbers floodplain work depends on — flood profiles, discharge tables, base flood elevations — locked inside scanned PDFs. FISExplorer reads them back out: ask questions with cited answers, pull tables, and lift coordinates straight off a flood profile by clicking the curve.
FLOOD PROFILE · digitizedclick the curve to read coordinates →
STATION —
ELEVATION —
Demo profile · your studies digitized to real scale
02 · ASK
Cited answers
Ask in plain language. Every answer links to the exact page it came from.
03 · EXTRACT
Tables out
Discharge and floodway data tables rebuilt as clean, downloadable data.
04 · DIGITIZE
Profiles to points
Click along a flood profile to lift station–elevation coordinates to scale.
How it works
From a locked PDF to data you can work with.
A study moves through four stages. Each one turns a piece of the document — text, tables, plots — back into something you can search, cite, or download.
STAGE 01
Page capture
Every page is imaged and assessed — text or scan — so the right reader is used on each.
STAGE 02
Text & OCR
Modern OCR pulls clean text from scans, then it's indexed for grounded, cited search.
STAGE 03
Table rebuild
Discharge and floodway tables are reconstructed into structured, exportable form.
STAGE 04
Profile digitizing
Flood profile plots are placed on their real axes so any point reads as station and elevation.
Access
Reading is free. Taking the data with you is the paid part.
Explore any digitized study, ask questions, and read cited pages at no cost. When you need the numbers in your own workflow — exported tables, digitized profile data — that's where it's paid.
Free
Explore
Everything you need to read and understand a study.
- Search and ask questions across a study
- Grounded answers with citations
- Open the cited page alongside the answer
- Look up base flood elevations
- Interactive profile viewer
Paid
Take it with you
The data, exported for your own case work.
- Download discharge & floodway tables
- Export digitized flood-profile coordinates
- Use the data in your models and reports
- Priority on new study requests
Early access
Request a study, free for now.
Tell us the community or county you need, and we'll digitize that study and send you access — usually within a day or two. It's free while we're getting started; we'd rather you see the work than pay for it yet.
No charge during early access · we'll only email you about your request