FEMA Records
30
High volume
Oklahoma · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Alfalfa County, OK
30 FEMA disaster declarations (1993-2021), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 30
- FEMA declarations
- 23
- Major disasters
- 41
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Alfalfa County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 30 declarations, more than 86% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 7% below the Oklahoma county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 41%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 41%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 30
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 37
- NFIP flood insurance claims filed
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records; an EM authorizes a narrower set of federal assistance than a DR.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 40003 · Alfalfa County 30 declarations · rank 413/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 30
- MAJOR-MID 77%
- RANK-MID #413
- PHOTO-FINISH Jefferson
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -7%
Nearest declaration peer: Jefferson, OK (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Oklahoma state profile
Alfalfa County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Alfalfa County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Alfalfa · this county 30
Alfalfa · this county
30 declarations
- Clallam · near 30
Clallam · near
30 declarations
- Jefferson · near 30
Jefferson · near
30 declarations
- Latimer · near 30
Latimer · near
30 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Alfalfa County carries 30 FEMA declaration records, ranked 413 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Alfalfa County ranks in the national declaration registry
Alfalfa County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Alfalfa County
30 Top 14% higher than 86% of 3,266 counties
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more counties. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 · 2026-08-25
Alfalfa County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Alfalfa County is led by Cold Wave (about $3.5M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Ice Storm carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High). EAL and risk score use different inputs; they need not agree.
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (December 2025 release) - Expected Annual Loss vs composite risk rating by hazard.
What does Alfalfa County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's data shows an elevated National Risk Index composite of 40.6/100 for this county (Very Low rating). Expected Annual Loss comes in at Very Low (roughly $10.1M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability (Relatively High) and community resilience (Relatively Moderate) both factor into how that raw exposure plays out on the ground. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Ice Storm stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 1 years here, based on 54 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 37 claims and $232.8K paid in total. PlainHazard calls 1-49 claims a light registry record, a label for this dataset rather than a finding that flood exposure is low. A short claims history can also reflect insurance take-up, the period covered, or losses that were never insured.
Start with the state benchmark: a Oklahoma county averages 32.2 federal declaration records, while Alfalfa County has 30. The gap is 7% below that mean. Fewer entries indicate a quieter history of recorded federal actions, not immunity from a hazard and not a prediction about what happens next.
68 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Alfalfa County, OK · PlainHazard-derived composite from federal records
This 0–100 index is an explicit PlainHazard composite from FEMA declaration history only on the county surface (this DB has no county-level NOAA damage row) . It is not FEMA's National Risk Index, not a forecast, and not a safety, insurance, or preparedness rating. Open the calculator · Methodology
FEMA Declarations (1953–present) High
22/30
30 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
30 declarations (0.9x state county average of 32)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
23 of 30 declarations are major disasters (77%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Alfalfa County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Alfalfa County
How to read this radar
Each axis: NRI risk rating (Very Low-Very High) on a 0-100 scale. Rounder = broad exposure; spiky = one or two hazards dominate.
Major Disaster share
77%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
41
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Alfalfa County?
FEMA's National Risk Index models a historical event count and an annualized frequency for each hazard type. Most hazards are expressed as modeled occurrences per year; FEMA expresses drought and heat-wave frequency as event-days per year. These modeled frequencies are not forecasts.
| Hazard | NRI Risk Rating | Recurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Storm | Relatively High | roughly once every 1 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 75 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 2.8 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 8.5 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 412 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 12 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 4.7 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 952 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 118 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 9.2 times per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 50 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 16
Severe Ice Storm 8
Biological 2
Tornado 2
Fire 1
Hurricane 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Alfalfa County's record, 53% of its declarations. In FEMA's vocabulary this covers convective weather: thunderstorm straight-line winds, large hail, and the multi-day outbreaks that often carry embedded tornadoes. Activity is heaviest in spring and summer, though the season varies by region.
These events behave differently from a hurricane on paper. Damage tends to be distributed along a storm track rather than concentrated on a coastline, and a declaration typically follows an outbreak that crossed several counties over a few days, not a single point of impact. Because the qualifying threshold is the cost of uninsured public and individual losses rather than storm intensity, two similar storms can produce a declaration in one year and none in another.
Declaration counts describe past federal action. They are a record of what was declared, not a forecast of future hazard probability.
Declaration Types
What DR / EM / FM mean
FEMA categorizes declarations as Major Disasters (DR), Emergencies (EM), or Fire Management Assistance (FM).
Major Disaster - 23 76.7%
of all 30 declarations
Emergency - 7 23.3%
of all 30 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 1 | |
| 2016 | 2 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2012 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 4 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 3 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
Show 3 earlier declaration years
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 2 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 30 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 30 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4587 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-24 |
| 3555 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-17 |
| 4575 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2020-12-21 |
| 4530 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3462 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4453 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-07-12 |
| 4438 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-06-01 |
| 4324 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 2017-07-25 |
| 4256 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-02-10 |
| 4247 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2015-12-29 |
| 4109 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-04-08 |
| 4064 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2012-06-14 |
| 3316 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2011-02-02 |
| 1917 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-05-24 |
| 1883 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2010-03-05 |
| 1876 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-25 |
| 3308 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2010-01-30 |
| 1803 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-10-09 |
| 1775 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-09 |
| 3280 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2007-12-10 |
Show 10 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1712 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-07-07 |
| 1678 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-02-01 |
| 3272 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2007-01-14 |
| 1623 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-10 |
| 3219 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1401 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2002-02-01 |
| 1384 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-06-29 |
| 1066 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-09-01 |
| 1058 | TORNADOES, SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 1995-06-26 |
| 991 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-05-12 |
Storm Events in Oklahoma
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Alfalfa County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 5,894 | 0 | 1 | $19.8M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,592 | 6 | 36 | $199.5M |
| Drought | 2,935 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Heat | 2,134 | 7 | 428 | $0 |
| Excessive Heat | 1,771 | 2 | 401 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
37
Total Paid
$232.8K
Avg Per Claim
$6.3K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 40.6/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$10.1M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Ice Storm Relatively High
Drought Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Ratings reflect relative scores among all US counties. Data: hazards.fema.gov/nri
The model's sharpest exposure here: Ice Storm
Ice storms load power lines and tree limbs with accumulating freezing rain until they fail. The characteristic cost is infrastructure and multi-day power loss across a wide area rather than structural damage to buildings, which is why their consequences often outlast the weather that caused them.
Worth noting for Alfalfa County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Ice Storm carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively High), while the county's declaration history is led by Severe Storm. That is not a contradiction, the two measure genuinely different things. Declarations record federal ACTION, which requires damage costly enough to exceed state and local capacity; the Risk Index models EXPECTED annual loss across all 18 hazards whether or not any declaration ever followed. A hazard can be the county's largest modeled exposure and never once have driven a declaration.
National Risk Index ratings are modeled estimates of expected annual loss, not predictions of what will happen in any given year.
Data-matched county comparisons
Alfalfa County's closest FEMA peer: Lincoln County, ME
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Alfalfa County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Alfalfa County shows 30 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Alfalfa County: 23 of 30 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Alfalfa County: NRI composite 40.6 (Very Low).
How these peers are chosen
Cohort: Published U.S. county equivalents outside the source state or territory. Each metric keeps six ETL candidates; three unique destinations are shown after de-duplicating across axes. Declaration-volume ranking combines count and Major-disaster share and prefers a different leading incident type; Major-share ranks the Major fraction adjusted for volume; NRI ranks the modeled composite score only.
Retained FEMA snapshot feed for Alfalfa County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Alfalfa County: nearest out-of-state National Risk Index composite and nearest FEMA declaration count (floor ≥5 records). Record similarity only, not a forecast of the next hazard.
Similar NRI composite
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA NRI score. This county: 40.6 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 30. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 30 FEMA declarations, Alfalfa County sits in the high-volume declaration band - see how that count ranks against other U.S. counties.
More PlainHazard guides
- Most disaster-prone counties - U.S. counties ranked by FEMA declaration totals.
- Understanding disaster data - declarations vs storm events vs NRI scores.
- Preparing for natural disasters - household checklist (not county-specific advice).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Alfalfa County?
The most common disaster type in Alfalfa County is Severe Storm, with 16 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Ice Storm (8), Biological (2), Tornado (2).
How does Alfalfa County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Oklahoma average?
The typical Oklahoma county has 32.2 FEMA declaration records; Alfalfa County has 30, or 7% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 45% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Alfalfa County received?
Alfalfa County has received 23 major disaster declarations, representing 77% of all 30 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Alfalfa County filed?
Alfalfa County has 37 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $232.8K in payments, with an average of $6.3K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Alfalfa County?
No. In Alfalfa County, Ice Storm has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Cold Wave leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.5M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Alfalfa County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Alfalfa County was 2010, with 4 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1993 to 2021.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Alfalfa County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Alfalfa County, Oklahoma has an overall risk score of 40.6 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively High, while community resilience comes in at Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $10.1M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Alfalfa County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Alfalfa County is Ice Storm (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Cold Wave (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts ice storm here at roughly once every 1 years, drawn from 54 historical events on record. FEMA derives these ratings from historical event frequency, the assets exposed, and the community's vulnerability profile.
Data Sources & Methodology
Disaster declaration data comes from the FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 API, which includes all federally declared disasters, emergencies, and fire management assistance grants.
Storm event data is sourced from the NOAA Storm Events Database (2015-2025), which tracks significant weather events including thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, and winter storms.
Flood insurance data comes from the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA claims dataset.
This data is provided for informational purposes only. FEMA disaster declarations represent federal response actions and may not capture all local emergencies or weather events.
FEMA OpenFEMA declarations + NRI for Alfalfa County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Oklahoma profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events