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Nebraska · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index

Arthur County, NE

12 FEMA disaster declarations (1967-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.

12
FEMA declarations
9
Major disasters
0
NRI risk · Very Low
Severe Storm
Top hazard

The verdict

Arthur County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 12 declarations, more than 14% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 29% below the Nebraska county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 1%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.

Safer than 1%
of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
Very Low
FEMA National Risk Index rating
12
FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
4
severe storm declarations, the most common hazard here

FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Fire Management Assistance (FM) records, which are not presidential disaster declarations, alongside Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records.

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FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk

County FIPS 31005 · Arthur County 12 declarations · rank 2756/3,266

DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW

  • DECL-MID 12
  • MAJOR-MID 75%
  • RANK-LOWER #2,756
  • PHOTO-FINISH Johnson
  • NRI-LOW Very Low
  • ACT-HIGH High
  • TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
  • VS-ST-BELOW -29%

Nearest declaration peer: Johnson, KS (0 declaration gap)

FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Nebraska state profile

Arthur County among counties with fewer federal records

FEMA declaration records among Arthur County and nearest peers by total count

declarations

What this shows Arthur County carries 12 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2756 of 3,266 counties in this registry.

Source FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 As of 2026-08-25

Arthur County versus quieter counties in this dataset

Arthur County among lower-declaration counties nationally

FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Arthur County

12 14th percentile higher than 14% of 3,266 counties

This county 0 90 all U.S. counties FEMA tracks, bucketed by value

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

Arthur County's FEMA Risk Index score

0/100100/100Nebraska avg26/1000.3/100
FEMA National Risk Index composite score vs. the Nebraska county average

Which hazard drives modeled loss here?

FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Arthur County is led by Drought (about $196.6K Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Wildfire carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Very Low). 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 Arthur County's hazard record show?

FEMA National Risk Index

This county sits at the very bottom of FEMA's National Risk Index nationally, a composite score of 0.3/100 (rated Very Low). Projected losses are minimal, Expected Annual Loss reads Very Low (roughly $743.1K in annualized losses), and the county's exposure is shaped by a Very Low social-vulnerability profile and Very Low community resilience. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Wildfire, only reaches Very Low on FEMA's scale, none of the 18 modeled hazards stand out here. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 523 years here.

Reading the federal records together

No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.

Start with the state benchmark: a Nebraska county averages 16.8 federal declaration records, while Arthur County has 12. The gap is 29% 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.

50 /100

Historical Activity Index

High historical activity

Arthur County, NE · 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) Moderate
9/30

12 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.6x national county average)

County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25

12 declarations (0.7x state county average of 17)

Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25

9 of 12 declarations are major disasters (75%)

Hazard Diversity High
13/20

5 different disaster types declared in Arthur County

FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Arthur County

Arthur County NRI risk profile 8-axis FEMA National Risk Index radar showing per-hazard scores for Earthquake 8, Flood 8, Hurricane 0, Tornado 8, Wildfire 8, Drought 25, Heat Wave 8, Winter Storm 8. The simple mean of these eight displayed scores is 9 of 100. Earthquake Flood Hurricane Tornado Wildfire Drought Heat Wave Winter Storm 9 8-hazard mean
Arthur County NRI risk profile FIPS 31005 · displayed-hazard mean 9/100
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.

FEMA Records

12

Low volume

Major Disaster share

75%

Mostly major

NRI risk score

0

Very Low

Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release

How often does each hazard strike Arthur 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
Wildfire Very Low roughly once every 523 years
Drought Relatively Low 71 modeled event-days per year
Hail Very Low an average of 6.1 times per year
Landslide Very Low roughly once every 2 years
Cold Wave Very Low an average of 5.2 times per year
Lightning Very Low an average of 42 times per year
Winter Weather Very Low an average of 16 times per year
Tornado Very Low roughly once every 3 years
Heat Wave Very Low 1.1 modeled event-days per year
Strong Wind Very Low an average of 2 times per year
Earthquake Very Low roughly once every 3,257 years
Ice Storm Very Low roughly once every 34 years
Riverine Flooding Very Low roughly once every 14 years

Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release

Disaster Types

Severe Storm 4
Flood 3
Fire 2
Biological 2
Hurricane 1

What Severe Storm declarations mean here

Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Arthur County's record, 33% 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 - 9 75.0%

of all 12 declarations

Emergency - 2 16.7%

of all 12 declarations

Fire Management - 1 8.3%

of all 12 declarations

FEMA Declarations Timeline

Year Declarations
2026 2
2020 2
2019 1
2015 1
2010 2
2009 1
2007 1
2005 1
1967 1

Disaster Declarations

How the 12 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.

Download these 12 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.

DR# Title Type Incident Date
4920 WILDFIRES DR Fire 2026-06-30
5623 MORRILL-COTTONWOOD FIRE FM Fire 2026-03-13
4521 COVID-19 PANDEMIC DR Biological 2020-04-04
3483 COVID-19 EM Biological 2020-03-13
4420 SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING DR Flood 2019-03-21
4225 SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING DR Severe Storm 2015-06-25
1924 SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING DR Severe Storm 2010-07-15
1902 SEVERE STORMS, ICE JAMS, AND FLOODING DR Flood 2010-04-21
1853 SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES DR Severe Storm 2009-07-31
1721 SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING DR Severe Storm 2007-08-29
3245 HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEES EM Hurricane 2005-09-13
228 SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING DR Flood 1967-07-18

Storm Events in Nebraska

Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Arthur County.

Storm Type Events Fatalities Injuries Property Damage
Hail 6,079 0 2 $237.7M
Thunderstorm Wind 4,757 3 19 $228.1M
Drought 1,658 0 0 $0
High Wind 1,647 1 1 $22.1M
Winter Storm 1,155 0 2 $335.0K

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025

FEMA National Risk Index

Overall Risk

Very Low

Score: 0.3/100

Expected Annual Loss

Very Low

$743.1K/year

Social Vulnerability

Very Low

Community Resilience

Very Low

Hazard Risk Breakdown

Wildfire Very Low
Drought Relatively Low
Hail Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Riverine Flooding 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: Wildfire

Wildfire risk in the model reflects fuel, terrain, weather and how much development sits in the wildland-urban interface. It is one of the few hazards where the exposure is materially changed by land management and building choices, not only by where the county happens to be.

Worth noting for Arthur County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire carries the highest modeled rating (Very Low), 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

Arthur County's closest FEMA peer: Walworth County, SD

Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Arthur County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.

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 Arthur County - capture-dated entries only.

Compare beyond this state

Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume

Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Arthur 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: 0.3 (Very Low).

4 peers

Similar declaration volume

Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 12. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.

4 peers

Further reading for this county

Most disaster-prone counties

With 12 FEMA declarations, Arthur County sits in the high-volume declaration band - see how that count ranks against other U.S. counties.
More PlainHazard guides

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most common disaster type in Arthur County?
The most common disaster type in Arthur County is Severe Storm, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (3), Fire (2), Biological (2).
How does Arthur County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Nebraska average?
The typical Nebraska county has 16.8 FEMA declaration records; Arthur County has 12, or 29% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 42% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Arthur County received?
Arthur County has received 9 major disaster declarations, representing 75% of all 12 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Arthur County?
No. In Arthur County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Very Low), while Drought leads Expected Annual Loss at about $196.6K. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Arthur County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Arthur County was 2010, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1967 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Arthur County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Arthur County, Nebraska has an overall risk score of 0.3 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very Low; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $743.1K in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Arthur County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Arthur County as of the latest release is Wildfire (risk rating: Very Low). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Low) and Hail (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 523 years. The underlying methodology weighs historical event frequency against exposed assets and community vulnerability.
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.

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 Arthur County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Nebraska profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events