FEMA Records
16
Below median
Texas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Cochran County, TX
16 FEMA disaster declarations (1970-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 16
- FEMA declarations
- 10
- Major disasters
- 13
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Cochran County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 16 declarations, more than 27% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 23% below the Texas county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 13%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 13%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 16
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 4
- fire 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 48079 · Cochran County 16 declarations · rank 2301/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 16
- MAJOR-MID 63%
- RANK-LOWER #2,301
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Fire
- VS-ST-BELOW -23%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Texas state profile
Cochran County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Cochran County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Cochran · this county 16
Cochran · this county
16 declarations
- Frontier · near 16
Frontier · near
16 declarations
- Greene · near 16
Greene · near
16 declarations
- Terrell · near 16
Terrell · near
16 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Cochran County carries 16 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2301 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Cochran County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Cochran County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Cochran County
16 27th percentile higher than 27% 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
Cochran County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Cochran 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 12.8/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $4.0M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively High) and community resilience (Very Low). Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Drought stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 96 modeled event-days per year here, based on 2,415 historical events on record.
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 Texas county averages 20.9 federal declaration records, while Cochran County has 16. The gap is 23% 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.
56 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Cochran County, TX · 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
16 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
16 declarations (0.8x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share High
16/25
10 of 16 declarations are major disasters (63%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Cochran County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Cochran 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
63%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
13
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Cochran 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drought | Relatively High | 96 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 179 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 6.7 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 1.9 times per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 4,255 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 1.8 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 49 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 15 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Fire 4
Severe Storm 3
Hurricane 3
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Flood 1
Tornado 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Cochran County's record, 25% of its declarations. Wildfire is the one hazard here with its own dedicated federal instrument: the Fire Management Assistance Grant, which appears in this data as an FM record. An FMAG can be authorised while a fire is still burning, on a timescale of hours, because its purpose is to reimburse the cost of fighting a fire that threatens to become a major disaster.
That distinction matters when comparing counties. An FM declaration is not a presidential major disaster declaration and does not carry the same assistance programmes, so a fire-heavy county's total is not directly comparable with a hurricane-heavy county's total unless the declaration types are separated, which is why they are listed separately on this page.
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 62.5%
of all 16 declarations
Emergency - 6 37.5%
of all 16 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1970 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 16 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 16 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4781 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-05-17 |
| 4586 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-19 |
| 3554 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-14 |
| 4485 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-25 |
| 3458 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4255 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-02-09 |
| 1999 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2011-07-01 |
| 3284 | WILDFIRES | EM | Fire | 2008-03-14 |
| 1624 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-11 |
| 1606 | HURRICANE RITA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-09-24 |
| 3261 | HURRICANE RITA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-21 |
| 3216 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-02 |
| 3142 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARDS | EM | Fire | 1999-09-01 |
| 1239 | TROPICAL STORM CHARLEY | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-08-26 |
| 960 | EXCESSIVE RAIN & HAIL | DR | Severe Storm | 1992-09-09 |
| 286 | TORNADOES, WINDSTORMS & FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 1970-05-13 |
Storm Events in Texas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Cochran County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 14,072 | 0 | 15 | $7.4B |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 10,293 | 41 | 141 | $369.9M |
| Drought | 7,032 | 0 | 0 | $86.0K |
| Flash Flood | 4,728 | 338 | 24 | $47.6B |
| Heat | 4,079 | 119 | 405 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 12.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$4.0M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively High
Hail Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Tornado Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Landslide 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: Drought
Drought is the slowest of the modeled hazards and the least visible: it does its damage to agriculture, water supply and soil over seasons rather than hours, so it rarely produces the kind of single-day damage that drives a disaster declaration. FEMA scores it in event-days per year rather than discrete events for exactly that reason.
Worth noting for Cochran County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively High), while the county's declaration history is led by Fire. 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
Cochran County's closest FEMA peer: Morrow County, OH
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Cochran County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Cochran County shows 16 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Cochran County: 10 of 16 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Cochran County: NRI composite 12.8 (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 Cochran County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Cochran 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: 12.8 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 16. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 16 FEMA declarations, Cochran 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 Cochran County?
The most common disaster type in Cochran County is Fire, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (3), Hurricane (3), Severe Ice Storm (2).
How does Cochran County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Texas average?
The typical Texas county has 20.9 FEMA declaration records; Cochran County has 16, or 23% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 23% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Cochran County received?
Cochran County has received 10 major disaster declarations, representing 63% of all 16 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Cochran County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Cochran County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1970 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Cochran County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Cochran County, Texas has an overall risk score of 12.8 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively High, while community resilience comes in at Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $4.0M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Cochran County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Cochran County as of the latest release is Drought (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Moderate) and Wildfire (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 96 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 2,415 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.
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 Cochran County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Texas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events