FEMA Records
21
Above median
Arkansas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Cleveland County, AR
21 FEMA disaster declarations (1973-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 21
- FEMA declarations
- 15
- Major disasters
- 9
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Cleveland County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 21 declarations, more than 52% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 13% below the Arkansas 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
- 21
- 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 05025 · Cleveland County 21 declarations · rank 1478/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 21
- MAJOR-MID 71%
- RANK-LOWER #1,478
- PHOTO-FINISH Montgomery
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -13%
Nearest declaration peer: Montgomery, IN (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Arkansas state profile
Cleveland County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Cleveland County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Atascosa · near 21
Atascosa · near
21 declarations
- Cleveland · this county 21
Cleveland · this county
21 declarations
- Mason · near 21
Mason · near
21 declarations
- Montgomery · near 21
Montgomery · near
21 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Cleveland County carries 21 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1478 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Cleveland County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Cleveland County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Cleveland County
21 Top 48% higher than 52% 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
Cleveland County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Cleveland County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $1.1M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Ice Storm carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate). 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 Cleveland 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 9.5/100 (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). Among the 18 modeled hazards, Ice Storm carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 1.1 times per year here, based on 72 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 $58.3K 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 Arkansas county averages 24.2 federal declaration records, while Cleveland County has 21. The gap is 13% 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.
64 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Cleveland County, AR · 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
15/30
21 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.0x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
11/25
21 declarations (0.9x state county average of 24)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
15 of 21 declarations are major disasters (71%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Cleveland County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Cleveland 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
71%
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 Cleveland 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 313 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 19 modeled event-days per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 42 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.8 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 2.6 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 63 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 2,706 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 8.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 3.8 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.2 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Cold Wave | 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
Severe Storm 7
Hurricane 3
Flood 3
Winter Storm 2
Biological 2
Severe Ice Storm 2
Tornado 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Cleveland County's record, 33% 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 - 15 71.4%
of all 21 declarations
Emergency - 6 28.6%
of all 21 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 4 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 2 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 3 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 21 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 21 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3636 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 3627 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-04-05 |
| 4700 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2023-04-04 |
| 3541 | HURRICANE LAURA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-08-27 |
| 4556 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Tornado | 2020-07-10 |
| 4518 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-03 |
| 3461 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4270 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-05-06 |
| 1975 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND ASSOCIATED FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-05-02 |
| 1872 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-04 |
| 1861 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-12-03 |
| 1845 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-06-16 |
| 1793 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING ASSOCIATED WITH HURRICANE GUSTAV | DR | Hurricane | 2008-09-18 |
| 3215 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-02 |
| 1363 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-03-13 |
| 1354 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2000-12-29 |
| 3159 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2000-12-28 |
| 1176 | FLOODING, SEVERE STORMS | DR | Flood | 1997-04-14 |
| 1011 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Snowstorm | 1994-02-28 |
| 907 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1991-05-30 |
Show 1 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 375 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1973-04-27 |
Storm Events in Arkansas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Cleveland County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 3,657 | 10 | 23 | $60.9M |
| Hail | 2,230 | 0 | 0 | $7.7M |
| Flash Flood | 1,517 | 12 | 3 | $15.9M |
| Heat | 1,222 | 2 | 325 | $0 |
| Flood | 1,152 | 9 | 0 | $40.2M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
4
Total Paid
$58.3K
Avg Per Claim
$14.6K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 9.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$2.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Hurricane Very Low
Hail Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Drought Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Cold Wave 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: Ice Storm
Ice storms load power lines and tree limbs with accumulating freezing rain until they fail. The characteristic cost is infrastructure and multi-day power loss across a wide area rather than structural damage to buildings, which is why their consequences often outlast the weather that caused them.
Worth noting for Cleveland County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Ice Storm carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), 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
Cleveland County's closest FEMA peer: Lycoming County, PA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Cleveland County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Cleveland County shows 21 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Cleveland County: 15 of 21 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Cleveland County: NRI composite 9.5 (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 Cleveland County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Cleveland 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: 9.5 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 21. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 21 FEMA declarations, Cleveland 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 Cleveland County?
The most common disaster type in Cleveland County is Severe Storm, with 7 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (3), Flood (3), Winter Storm (2).
How does Cleveland County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Arkansas average?
The typical Arkansas county has 24.2 FEMA declaration records; Cleveland County has 21, or 13% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 1% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Cleveland County received?
Cleveland County has received 15 major disaster declarations, representing 71% of all 21 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Cleveland County filed?
Cleveland County has 4 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $58.3K in payments, with an average of $14.6K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Cleveland County?
No. In Cleveland County, Ice Storm has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.1M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Cleveland County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Cleveland County was 2020, with 4 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1973 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Cleveland County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Cleveland County, Arkansas has an overall risk score of 9.5 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 $2.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Cleveland County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Cleveland County is Ice Storm (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (Relatively Low) and Heat Wave (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts ice storm here at an average of 1.1 times per year, drawn from 72 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 Cleveland County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Arkansas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events