FEMA Records
17
Below median
Indiana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Blackford County, IN
17 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 17
- FEMA declarations
- 10
- Major disasters
- 9
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Blackford County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 17 declarations, more than 32% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 1% below the Indiana county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 9%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 9%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 17
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 4
- 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 18009 · Blackford County 17 declarations · rank 2096/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 17
- MAJOR-MID 59%
- RANK-LOWER #2,096
- PHOTO-FINISH Curry
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -1%
Nearest declaration peer: Curry, OR (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Indiana state profile
Blackford County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Blackford County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Blackford · this county 17
Blackford · this county
17 declarations
- Curry · near 17
Curry · near
17 declarations
- Murray · near 17
Murray · near
17 declarations
- Washington · near 17
Washington · near
17 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Blackford County carries 17 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2096 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Blackford County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Blackford County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Blackford County
17 32nd percentile higher than 32% 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
Blackford County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Blackford County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $2.1M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Tornado 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 Blackford 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 9.0/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $4.1M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively Moderate) and community resilience (Very High). Even the county's top-rated hazard, Tornado, 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 8 years here, based on 5 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 4 claims and $1.5K 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 Indiana county averages 17.1 federal declaration records, while Blackford County has 17. The gap is 1% 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.
59 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Blackford County, IN · 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
12/30
17 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
17 declarations (1.0x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share High
15/25
10 of 17 declarations are major disasters (59%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Blackford County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Blackford 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
59%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
9
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Blackford 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 660 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 5.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 4.5 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 1.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 87 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 36 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 9.9 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 3.7 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 43 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 89,912 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 5
Snowstorm 4
Biological 2
Flood 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Severe Ice Storm 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Blackford County's record, 29% 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 - 10 58.8%
of all 17 declarations
Emergency - 7 41.2%
of all 17 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 2003 | 2 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 2 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 17 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 17 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3641 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4515 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-03 |
| 3456 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4173 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2014-04-22 |
| 3274 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2007-03-12 |
| 3238 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1573 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-01-21 |
| 3197 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2005-01-11 |
| 1487 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-09-05 |
| 1476 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-07-11 |
| 1433 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-09-25 |
| 3135 | IN-WINTER STORM 12/23/98 | EM | Snowstorm | 1999-01-15 |
| 1109 | BLIZZARD OF 96 | DR | Flood | 1996-04-02 |
| 899 | SEVERE ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 1991-03-29 |
| 891 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1991-01-05 |
| 3028 | SNOWSTORMS | EM | Snowstorm | 1977-02-02 |
| 189 | TORNADOES & SEVERE STORMS | DR | Tornado | 1965-04-14 |
Storm Events in Indiana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Blackford County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,886 | 16 | 73 | $57.6M |
| Hail | 1,643 | 0 | 0 | $1.7M |
| Winter Weather | 1,166 | 32 | 80 | $2.5M |
| Flood | 850 | 13 | 3 | $16.0M |
| Flash Flood | 648 | 14 | 5 | $97.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
4
Total Paid
$1.5K
Avg Per Claim
$379
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 9.0/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$4.1M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Tornado Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Drought Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Wildfire 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: Tornado
Tornado exposure is the most spatially concentrated in the model: total destruction along a narrow corridor with intact property either side. County-level averages therefore understate severity badly for anyone actually in the path, and overstate it for everyone else.
For Blackford County the two measures on this page point the same way: Tornado is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively Low), and Severe Storm declarations also lead its federal record. Where the model and the declaration history agree, the reading is comparatively straightforward, the hazard is both expected and repeatedly realised.
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
Blackford County's closest FEMA peer: Lehigh County, PA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Blackford County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Blackford County shows 17 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Blackford County: 10 of 17 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Blackford County: NRI composite 9.0 (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 Blackford County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Blackford 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: 9.0 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 17. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 17 FEMA declarations, Blackford 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 Blackford County?
The most common disaster type in Blackford County is Severe Storm, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Snowstorm (4), Biological (2), Flood (2).
How does Blackford County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Indiana average?
The typical Indiana county has 17.1 FEMA declaration records; Blackford County has 17, or 1% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 18% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Blackford County received?
Blackford County has received 10 major disaster declarations, representing 59% of all 17 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Blackford County filed?
Blackford County has 4 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $1.5K in payments, with an average of $379 per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Blackford County?
No. In Blackford County, Tornado has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $2.1M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Blackford County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Blackford County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Blackford County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Blackford County, Indiana has an overall risk score of 9.0 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively Moderate and community resilience is Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $4.1M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Blackford County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Blackford County as of the latest release is Tornado (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (Very Low) and Heat Wave (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts tornado here at roughly once every 8 years, drawn from 5 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 Blackford County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Indiana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events