FEMA Records
19
Below median
Georgia · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Baker County, GA
19 FEMA disaster declarations (1966-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 19
- FEMA declarations
- 13
- Major disasters
- 10
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Baker County. Its 19 FEMA declarations are 9% above the Georgia county mean and exceed the count for 41% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 10%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 10%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 19
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 40
- 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 13007 · Baker County 19 declarations · rank 1900/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-MID 19
- MAJOR-MID 68%
- RANK-LOWER #1,900
- PHOTO-FINISH Bartow
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +9%
Nearest declaration peer: Bartow, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Georgia state profile
Baker County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Baker County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Baker · this county 19
Baker · this county
19 declarations
- Bartow · near 19
Bartow · near
19 declarations
- Union · near 19
Union · near
19 declarations
- Warren · near 19
Warren · near
19 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Baker County carries 19 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1900 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Baker County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Baker County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Baker County
19 41st percentile higher than 41% 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
Baker County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Baker County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $992.4K Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Hurricane carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively 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 Baker County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 9.8/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $2.9M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Very High) and community resilience (Very Low). Even the county's top-rated hazard, Hurricane, only reaches Relatively 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 5 years here, based on 55 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 40 claims and $657.1K 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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Baker County's 19 federal records stand 9% above the Georgia county mean of 17.4. That comparison describes how often federal action was recorded, including any Major Disaster, Emergency, and Fire Management entries shown on this page; it does not convert the count into future probability.
63 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Baker County, GA · 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
14/30
19 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.9x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
14/25
19 declarations (1.1x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share High
17/25
13 of 19 declarations are major disasters (68%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Baker County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Baker 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
68%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
10
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Baker 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 5 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 48 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 1.9 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,286 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 1.4 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 826 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 71 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 1.5 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 22 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 10 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 6
Severe Storm 6
Biological 2
Tornado 2
Tropical Storm 1
Drought 1
Flood 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Baker County's record, 32% 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 - 13 68.4%
of all 19 declarations
Emergency - 6 31.6%
of all 19 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 4 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1966 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 19 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 19 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3616 | HURRICANE HELENE | EM | Tropical Storm | 2024-09-26 |
| 4501 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-29 |
| 3464 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4400 | HURRICANE MICHAEL | DR | Hurricane | 2018-10-14 |
| 3406 | HURRICANE MICHAEL | EM | Hurricane | 2018-10-10 |
| 4338 | HURRICANE IRMA | DR | Hurricane | 2017-09-15 |
| 3387 | HURRICANE IRMA | EM | Hurricane | 2017-09-08 |
| 4297 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 2017-01-26 |
| 4294 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-01-25 |
| 4259 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-02-26 |
| 1833 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, TORNADOES, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-04-23 |
| 1686 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-03-03 |
| 3218 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1560 | TROPICAL STORM FRANCES | DR | Hurricane | 2004-09-24 |
| 1209 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-03-11 |
| 1033 | TORNADOES, FLOODING TORRENTIAL RAIN(TROP STORM ALBERTO) | DR | Tornado | 1994-07-07 |
| 857 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNAODES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-02-23 |
| 3044 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-07-20 |
| 214 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1966-03-14 |
Storm Events in Georgia
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Baker County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 9,617 | 15 | 75 | $65.4M |
| Drought | 1,363 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Hail | 1,257 | 0 | 0 | $61.8M |
| Flash Flood | 1,154 | 0 | 3 | $29.3M |
| Tropical Storm | 655 | 28 | 19 | $855.3M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
40
Total Paid
$657.1K
Avg Per Claim
$16.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 9.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$2.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hurricane Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Hail Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Ice Storm 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: Hurricane
Hurricane exposure in the model bundles the three ways a tropical system does harm, which arrive on different timescales and are insured differently: wind, storm surge on the coast, and rainfall flooding that can reach far inland well after landfall.
Worth noting for Baker County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Hurricane carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively 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
Baker County's closest FEMA peer: Warren County, NY
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Baker County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Baker County shows 19 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Baker County: 13 of 19 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Baker County: NRI composite 9.8 (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 Baker County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Baker 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: 9.8 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 19. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 19 FEMA declarations, Baker 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 Baker County?
The most common disaster type in Baker County is Severe Storm, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (6), Biological (2), Tornado (2).
How does Baker County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Georgia average?
FEMA lists 19 declaration records for Baker County. That is 9% above the Georgia county mean of 17.4. Its count is also 8% below the national county mean of 20.7. A larger declaration history records more federal actions; it is not a forecast of the county's next hazard.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Baker County received?
Baker County has received 13 major disaster declarations, representing 68% of all 19 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Baker County filed?
Baker County has 40 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $657.1K in payments, with an average of $16.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Baker County?
No. In Baker County, Hurricane has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $992.4K. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Baker County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Baker County was 2017, with 4 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1966 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Baker County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Baker County, Georgia has an overall risk score of 9.8 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very High and community resilience is Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $2.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Baker County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Baker County is Hurricane (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Cold Wave (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hurricane here at roughly once every 5 years, drawn from 55 historical events on record. 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.
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 Baker County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Georgia profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events