FEMA · NOAA · National Risk Index, public federal data

Natural hazard & disaster data across U.S. counties

Look up FEMA disaster declarations, NOAA storm events, and FEMA National Risk Index scores for any U.S. county or state, what has happened, what it cost, and where risk runs highest.

Check a county's risk score → See the rankings

Quick browse By state Counties Storm hazards Guides

5,218
FEMA declarations: 681,982
NOAA storm events: $250.3B
NOAA storm property damage, 2015–2025: 3,266
Counties profiled

The national picture

Riverine Flooding alone drives 43% of the nation's $150.1B in FEMA-modeled annual disaster loss, concentrated in the 17 counties FEMA rates "Very High" risk. FEMA's declarations span 27 distinct disaster types across all 59 states and territories, while PlainHazard's separate 2015–2025 NOAA extract covers 54 storm-hazard categories and 10,622 recorded fatalities.

43%
of national expected annual loss from riverine flooding alone: 17
counties rated "Very High" risk by FEMA: 396
California's FEMA declarations, most of any state: $250.3B
in tracked property damage nationwide

FEMA and NOAA measure different things, declarations reflect a federal response threshold, storm events capture every recorded weather event, see our methodology for how they're kept separate.

FEMA National Risk Index

Which hazards drive the most expected loss?

The National Risk Index estimates the expected annual loss each natural hazard causes, in dollars, across 3,144 U.S. counties. Riverine Flooding and earthquake top the list, but the order surprises most people.

Riverine Flooding

$65.3
Earthquake

$26.5
Hurricane

$14.2
Tornado

$11.5
Cold Wave

$9.9
Heat Wave

$7.1
Wildfire

$3.9
Hail

$3.2

What this shows Riverine Flooding leads at $65.3B in expected annual loss nationwide, ahead of earthquake and hurricane, concentrated in a small number of high-exposure counties.

$26.5B
Earthquake, the #2 hazard by expected annual loss: 165,914,986
People living in high or very-high-risk counties: 3,144
Counties FEMA has scored across all 18 modeled hazards

Do more storms mean more federal disasters?

Illinois records far more NOAA storm events than its FEMA declaration rank suggests, while Nevada climbs the declaration ledger with Fire Management Assistance at 75.5% of its declarations. Storm counts and federal declarations answer different questions.

Each point is a state or territory plotted by within-sample rank percentile (0–100) on FEMA OpenFEMA declarations (x) and NOAA Storm Events (y). Crosshairs mark the mid-rank (50th). Illinois is the clearest threshold-gap example in this release. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 + NOAA Storm Events Database.

Read the chart, every state as text

Percentiles are within this release's state/territory sample. Raw counts are the underlying FEMA and NOAA totals.

State	FEMA decls	FEMA %ile	NOAA storms	NOAA %ile
California	396	98	23,694	93
Texas	389	96	53,309	98
Oklahoma	258	95	23,896	95
Washington	215	93	4,408	22
Florida	188	91	12,838	55
Oregon	169	89	3,695	20
New Mexico	126	87	10,974	45
Arizona	120	85	9,541	38
New York	118	84	21,653	82
Montana	112	82	13,576	56
Colorado	111	78	18,340	73
Louisiana	111	78	11,204	47
Nevada	110	76	4,534	24
Alabama	102	75	14,583	64
Kentucky	98	71	19,947	78
Mississippi	98	71	14,100	62
Tennessee	97	69	16,645	69
South Dakota	96	67	22,759	87
Alaska	94	64	2,683	15
Kansas	94	64	25,115	96
Arkansas	87	60	13,637	58
Nebraska	87	60	20,136	80
Missouri	86	58	22,952	89
North Carolina	85	56	16,367	67
West Virginia	84	55	12,026	49
Georgia	81	51	16,676	71
Minnesota	81	51	19,109	75
Iowa	78	49	21,883	84
Virginia	77	47	23,584	91
North Dakota	75	45	10,818	44
Hawaii	72	44	6,200	31
Maine	71	42	4,781	27
Illinois	68	40	22,088	85
Pennsylvania	64	38	19,427	76
New Hampshire	63	36	2,547	11
Vermont	62	35	3,449	18
Idaho	60	31	5,142	29
Ohio	60	31	16,184	65
Massachusetts	59	25	6,781	33
New Jersey	59	25	8,218	35
Utah	59	25	4,578	25
Wisconsin	56	24	13,807	60
Indiana	54	22	12,687	53
Puerto Rico	51	18	2,944	16
South Carolina	51	18	10,520	42
Michigan	46	16	9,052	36
Wyoming	45	15	12,494	51
Connecticut	43	13	2,622	13
Maryland	38	11	10,290	40
U.S. Virgin Islands	33	9	88	0
Rhode Island	31	7	924	7
Delaware	26	5	1,475	9
Guam	25	4	258	2
District of Columbia	24	2	452	5
American Samoa	17	0	292	4

States with the most FEMA declaration records

Full ranking →

Ranked by FEMA declaration records, 1953–2026, including Major Disaster, Emergency, and Fire Management Assistance declarations. This is not a direct hazard-risk ranking, see the signature quadrant above for how it diverges from NOAA storm counts.

State	Declarations	Storm events	Damage
California (CA)	396	23,694	$22.1B
Texas (TX)	389	53,309	$69.5B
Oklahoma (OK)	258	23,896	$1.1B
Washington (WA)	215	4,408	$3.3B
Florida (FL)	188	12,838	$41.7B
Oregon (OR)	169	3,695	$4.0B
New Mexico (NM)	126	10,974	$1.3B
Arizona (AZ)	120	9,541	$361.6M
New York (NY)	118	21,653	$992.0M
Montana (MT)	112	13,576	$93.7M

Most common storm hazards

View all 54 →

#1 Thunderstorm Wind

195,198

events across 54 states

#2 Hail

97,094

events across 53 states

#3 Flash Flood

45,915

events across 55 states

#4 High Wind

41,160

events across 53 states

#5 Winter Weather

40,812

events across 51 states

FEMA disaster types

View all →

Fire

44 states affected

1,755

Severe Storm

55 states affected

1,134

Flood

55 states affected

922

Hurricane

48 states affected

454

Tornado

33 states affected

182

Snowstorm

39 states affected

171

Biological

56 states affected

167

Severe Ice Storm

28 states affected