FEMA Records
23
Above median
Mississippi · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Chickasaw County, MS
23 FEMA disaster declarations (1973-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 23
- FEMA declarations
- 18
- Major disasters
- 44
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Chickasaw County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 23 declarations, more than 62% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 11% below the Mississippi county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 44%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 44%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 23
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 3
- 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 28017 · Chickasaw County 23 declarations · rank 1207/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 23
- MAJOR-MID 78%
- RANK-LOWER #1,207
- PHOTO-FINISH Roanoke
- NRI-LOW 44
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -11%
Nearest declaration peer: Roanoke, VA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Mississippi state profile
Chickasaw County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Chickasaw County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Amherst · near 23
Amherst · near
23 declarations
- Chickasaw · this county 23
Chickasaw · this county
23 declarations
- Roanoke · near 23
Roanoke · near
23 declarations
- Vance · near 23
Vance · near
23 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Chickasaw County carries 23 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1207 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Chickasaw County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Chickasaw County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Chickasaw County
23 Top 38% higher than 62% 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
Chickasaw County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Chickasaw County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $2.1M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Low), while Strong Wind 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 Chickasaw County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's data shows an elevated National Risk Index composite of 43.9/100 for this county (Relatively Low rating). Expected Annual Loss comes in at Very Low (roughly $9.6M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability (Very High) and community resilience (Relatively Low) both factor into how that raw exposure plays out on the ground. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Strong Wind stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 2 times per year here, based on 76 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 3 claims and $8.2K 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 Mississippi county averages 25.9 federal declaration records, while Chickasaw County has 23. The gap is 11% 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.
66 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Chickasaw County, MS · 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
17/30
23 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.1x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
11/25
23 declarations (0.9x state county average of 26)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
18 of 23 declarations are major disasters (78%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Chickasaw County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Chickasaw 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
78%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
44
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Chickasaw 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Strong Wind | Relatively High | an average of 2 times per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 282 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 15 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 17 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 17 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 66 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.4 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,852 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 3.8 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 11
Hurricane 5
Winter Storm 2
Biological 2
Severe Ice Storm 1
Tornado 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Chickasaw County's record, 48% 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 - 18 78.3%
of all 23 declarations
Emergency - 5 21.7%
of all 23 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 2 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 5 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
Show 2 earlier declaration years
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 23 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 23 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4899 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2026-02-06 |
| 3640 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4626 | HURRICANE IDA | DR | Hurricane | 2021-10-22 |
| 3569 | HURRICANE IDA | EM | Hurricane | 2021-08-28 |
| 4536 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2020-04-16 |
| 4528 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3474 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4478 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2020-03-12 |
| 4470 | SEVERE STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-12-06 |
| 4429 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-04-23 |
| 4248 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-01-04 |
| 1972 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND ASSOCIATED FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-04-29 |
| 3291 | HURRICANE GUSTAV | EM | Hurricane | 2008-08-30 |
| 1604 | HURRICANE KATRINA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-08-29 |
| 1594 | HURRICANE DENNIS | DR | Hurricane | 2005-07-10 |
| 1470 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND HIGH WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-05-23 |
| 1360 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-02-23 |
| 1265 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, ICE AND FREEZING RAIN | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 1999-01-25 |
| 1009 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, FREEEZING RAIN AND SLEET | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-02-18 |
| 968 | SEVERE STORMS, HIGH WINDS & TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1992-11-25 |
Show 3 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 906 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1991-05-17 |
| 3032 | DROUGHT & FREEZING | EM | Snowstorm | 1977-02-22 |
| 368 | HEAVY RAINS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1973-03-27 |
Storm Events in Mississippi
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Chickasaw County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,557 | 17 | 60 | $93.9M |
| Flash Flood | 1,551 | 6 | 9 | $83.6M |
| Hail | 1,411 | 0 | 0 | $90.1M |
| Heat | 1,340 | 3 | 0 | $0 |
| Tornado | 1,097 | 68 | 610 | $562.0M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
3
Total Paid
$8.2K
Avg Per Claim
$2.7K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 43.9/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$9.6M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Strong Wind Relatively High
Earthquake Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Hurricane Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Winter Weather 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: Strong Wind
Strong Wind covers damaging non-thunderstorm, non-tornadic wind, the kind produced by steep pressure gradients and downslope events. It is a broad, frequent, low-drama hazard: roofs, signage, power lines and high-profile vehicles, spread across a wide area rather than concentrated on a path.
For Chickasaw County the two measures on this page point the same way: Strong Wind is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively High), 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
Chickasaw County's closest FEMA peer: Sacramento County, CA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Chickasaw County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Chickasaw County shows 23 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Chickasaw County: 18 of 23 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Chickasaw County: NRI composite 43.9 (Relatively 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 Chickasaw County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Chickasaw 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: 43.9 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 23. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 23 FEMA declarations, Chickasaw 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 Chickasaw County?
The most common disaster type in Chickasaw County is Severe Storm, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (5), Winter Storm (2), Biological (2).
How does Chickasaw County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Mississippi average?
The typical Mississippi county has 25.9 FEMA declaration records; Chickasaw County has 23, or 11% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 11% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Chickasaw County received?
Chickasaw County has received 18 major disaster declarations, representing 78% of all 23 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Chickasaw County filed?
Chickasaw County has 3 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $8.2K in payments, with an average of $2.7K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Chickasaw County?
No. In Chickasaw County, Strong Wind has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), 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 Chickasaw County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Chickasaw County was 2020, with 5 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1973 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Chickasaw County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Chickasaw County, Mississippi has an overall risk score of 43.9 out of 100 (Relatively Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very High; on community resilience, Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $9.6M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Chickasaw County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Chickasaw County as of the latest release is Strong Wind (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (Relatively Low) and Drought (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts strong wind here at an average of 2 times per year, drawn from 76 historical events on record. These scores are based on FEMA's analysis of historical event frequency, 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 Chickasaw County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Mississippi profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events