FEMA Records
29
High volume
Mississippi · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Claiborne County, MS
29 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 29
- FEMA declarations
- 21
- Major disasters
- 25
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Claiborne County. Its 29 FEMA declarations are 12% above the Mississippi county mean and exceed the count for 85% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 25%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 25%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 29
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 222
- 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 28021 · Claiborne County 29 declarations · rank 469/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 29
- MAJOR-MID 72%
- RANK-MID #469
- PHOTO-FINISH Bath
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +12%
Nearest declaration peer: Bath, KY (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Mississippi state profile
Claiborne County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Claiborne County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bath · near 29
Bath · near
29 declarations
- Claiborne · this county 29
Claiborne · this county
29 declarations
- Lenoir · near 29
Lenoir · near
29 declarations
- Walthall · near 29
Walthall · near
29 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Claiborne County carries 29 FEMA declaration records, ranked 469 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Claiborne County ranks in the national declaration registry
Claiborne County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Claiborne County
29 Top 15% higher than 85% 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
Claiborne County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Claiborne County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $2.0M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Hail 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 Claiborne County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 222 paid claims, totaling $2.9M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $12.9K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Claiborne County's 29 federal records stand 12% above the Mississippi county mean of 25.9. 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 24.7/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $5.5M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very High social-vulnerability score and Relatively Moderate community-resilience score. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Hail, 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 an average of 3.8 times per year here, based on 145 historical events on record.
73 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Claiborne 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
21/30
29 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
14/25
29 declarations (1.1x state county average of 26)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
21 of 29 declarations are major disasters (72%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Claiborne County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Claiborne 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
72%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
25
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Claiborne 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.8 times per year |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 12 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 16 modeled event-days per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 17 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 696 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,231 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 71 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 2.5 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 10
Hurricane 9
Flood 3
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 Claiborne County's record, 34% 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 - 21 72.4%
of all 29 declarations
Emergency - 8 27.6%
of all 29 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 2 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 4 | |
| 2017 | 1 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2012 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1983 | 2 | |
Show 5 earlier declaration years
| 1979 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 29 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 29 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 |
| 4727 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES. | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-08-12 |
| 4626 | HURRICANE IDA | DR | Hurricane | 2021-10-22 |
| 3569 | HURRICANE IDA | EM | Hurricane | 2021-08-28 |
| 4598 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-05-04 |
| 3548 | HURRICANE DELTA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-10-08 |
| 4551 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2020-07-09 |
| 4538 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2020-04-23 |
| 4528 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3474 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4314 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-05-22 |
| 4268 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2016-03-25 |
| 4081 | HURRICANE ISAAC | DR | Hurricane | 2012-08-29 |
| 1983 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2011-05-11 |
| 3320 | FLOODING | EM | Flood | 2011-05-04 |
| 1794 | HURRICANE GUSTAV | DR | Hurricane | 2008-09-22 |
| 3291 | HURRICANE GUSTAV | EM | Hurricane | 2008-08-30 |
| 1604 | HURRICANE KATRINA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-08-29 |
| 1550 | HURRICANE IVAN | DR | Hurricane | 2004-09-15 |
Show 9 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1459 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODS | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-04-24 |
| 906 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1991-05-17 |
| 683 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1983-06-01 |
| 678 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING & TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 1983-04-16 |
| 577 | STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODS | DR | Severe Storm | 1979-04-16 |
| 3063 | TORNADOES | EM | Tornado | 1978-04-24 |
| 3032 | DROUGHT & FREEZING | EM | Snowstorm | 1977-02-22 |
| 368 | HEAVY RAINS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1973-03-27 |
| 210 | HURRICANE BETSY | DR | Hurricane | 1965-09-25 |
Storm Events in Mississippi
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Claiborne 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
222
Total Paid
$2.9M
Avg Per Claim
$12.9K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 24.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$5.5M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hail Relatively Low
Landslide Relatively Low
Hurricane Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Cold Wave 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: Hail
Hail is among the most expensive hazards in the model relative to how little it threatens life. It concentrates on roofs, vehicles and crops, and a single severe storm can generate an insurance loss across a metropolitan area without a single injury.
For Claiborne County the two measures on this page point the same way: Hail 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
Claiborne County's closest FEMA peer: Montgomery County, PA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Claiborne County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Claiborne County shows 29 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Claiborne County: 21 of 29 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Claiborne County: NRI composite 24.7 (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 Claiborne County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Claiborne 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: 24.7 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 29. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Claiborne County's NFIP claims file (222 claims) and FEMA declaration history measure different federal records - this guide separates them from modeled NRI risk.
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 Claiborne County?
The most common disaster type in Claiborne County is Severe Storm, with 10 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (9), Flood (3), Winter Storm (2).
How does Claiborne County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Mississippi average?
FEMA lists 29 declaration records for Claiborne County. That is 12% above the Mississippi county mean of 25.9. Its count is also 40% above 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 Claiborne County received?
Claiborne County has received 21 major disaster declarations, representing 72% of all 29 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Claiborne County filed?
Claiborne County has 222 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $2.9M in payments, with an average of $12.9K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Claiborne County?
No. In Claiborne County, Hail has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $2.0M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Claiborne County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Claiborne County was 2020, with 4 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Claiborne County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Claiborne County, Mississippi has an overall risk score of 24.7 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very High and community resilience is Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $5.5M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Claiborne County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Claiborne County is Hail (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Landslide (Relatively Low) and Hurricane (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hail here at an average of 3.8 times per year, drawn from 145 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 Claiborne County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Mississippi profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events