FEMA Records
14
Low volume
South Dakota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Bennett County, SD
14 FEMA disaster declarations (1976-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 14
- FEMA declarations
- 11
- Major disasters
- 6
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Bennett County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 14 declarations, more than 20% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 26% below the South Dakota county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 6%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 6%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 14
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 4
- flood declarations, the most common hazard here
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 46007 · Bennett County 14 declarations · rank 2591/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 14
- MAJOR-MID 79%
- RANK-LOWER #2,591
- PHOTO-FINISH Pulaski
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -26%
Nearest declaration peer: Pulaski, IL (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · South Dakota state profile
Bennett County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Bennett County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bennett · this county 14
Bennett · this county
14 declarations
- Franklin (city) · near 14
Franklin (city) · near
14 declarations
- Harris · near 14
Harris · near
14 declarations
- Pulaski · near 14
Pulaski · near
14 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Bennett County carries 14 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2591 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Bennett County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Bennett County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Bennett County
14 20th percentile higher than 20% 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
Bennett County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Bennett 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 5.9/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $1.9M 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, Wildfire, 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 255 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 South Dakota county averages 19.0 federal declaration records, while Bennett County has 14. The gap is 26% 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.
57 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Bennett County, SD · 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
10/30
14 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.7x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25
14 declarations (0.7x state county average of 19)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
11 of 14 declarations are major disasters (79%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Bennett County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Bennett 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
79%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
6
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Bennett 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 | Relatively Low | roughly once every 255 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 15 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 48 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 5.1 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.6 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 6 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 38 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 2.4 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,464 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 2 modeled event-days per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 4
Severe Storm 3
Biological 2
Snowstorm 2
Winter Storm 1
Coastal Storm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Bennett County's record, 29% of its declarations. Federal flood declarations cover two mechanisms that behave very differently: riverine flooding, which builds over days as a watershed drains and is usually forecast well in advance, and flash flooding, which can arrive in under an hour from rainfall that fell somewhere upstream.
Flood is also the one hazard class where a second federal dataset exists for the same events. The National Flood Insurance Program records what was actually paid on insured losses, so it measures a narrower thing than the declaration count: uninsured damage, and flooding outside mapped special flood hazard areas, never enters it. Reading the two together is more informative than either alone.
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 - 11 78.6%
of all 14 declarations
Emergency - 3 21.4%
of all 14 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 2 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 14 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 14 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4807 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-08-15 |
| 4689 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2023-02-27 |
| 4527 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3475 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4463 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-09-23 |
| 4440 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, SNOWSTORM, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-06-07 |
| 4125 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADO, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-06-28 |
| 1811 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND RECORD AND NEAR RECORD SNOW | DR | Snowstorm | 2008-12-12 |
| 1759 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND RECORD AND NEAR RECORD SNOW | DR | Snowstorm | 2008-05-22 |
| 1647 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2006-06-05 |
| 3234 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Coastal Storm | 2005-09-10 |
| 1173 | SEVERE FLOODING, SEVER WINTER STORMS,HEAVY RAINS HIGH WINDS | DR | Flood | 1997-04-07 |
| 1156 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND BLIZZARD CONDITIONS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-10 |
| 3015 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-06-17 |
Storm Events in South Dakota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Bennett County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,388 | 7 | 21 | $10.7M |
| Hail | 4,801 | 0 | 3 | $4.5M |
| High Wind | 2,277 | 0 | 1 | $35.0K |
| Winter Weather | 2,125 | 20 | 50 | $133.0K |
| Flood | 1,523 | 5 | 0 | $196.2M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 5.9/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$1.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Heat Wave 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 Bennett County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Low), while the county's declaration history is led by Flood. 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
Bennett County's closest FEMA peer: Jackson County, WI
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Bennett County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Bennett County shows 14 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Bennett County: 11 of 14 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Bennett County: NRI composite 5.9 (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 Bennett County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Bennett 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: 5.9 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 14. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 14 FEMA declarations, Bennett 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 Bennett County?
The most common disaster type in Bennett County is Flood, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (3), Biological (2), Snowstorm (2).
How does Bennett County's FEMA declaration record compare with the South Dakota average?
The typical South Dakota county has 19.0 FEMA declaration records; Bennett County has 14, or 26% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 32% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Bennett County received?
Bennett County has received 11 major disaster declarations, representing 79% of all 14 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Bennett County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Bennett County was 1997, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1976 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Bennett County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Bennett County, South Dakota has an overall risk score of 5.9 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Very High, while community resilience comes in at Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $1.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Bennett County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Bennett County is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Winter Weather (Relatively Low) and Drought (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 255 years. 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.
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 Bennett County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · South Dakota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events