FEMA Records
9
Low volume
Illinois · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Coles County, IL
9 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2023), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 9
- FEMA declarations
- 6
- Major disasters
- 70
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Start with the local benchmark for Coles County: 9 FEMA declaration records are 30% below the Illinois county mean, even though the count is higher than 8% of counties in the national registry. On FEMA's distinct National Risk Index model, which combines expected loss with vulnerability and resilience, the county ranks in the riskiest 30%.
- Riskiest 30%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 9
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 62
- 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 17029 · Coles County 9 declarations · rank 2982/3,266
DECL-LIGHT · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-MODERATE · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-LIGHT 9
- MAJOR-MID 67%
- RANK-LOWER #2,982
- PHOTO-FINISH Fulton
- NRI-LOW 70
- ACT-MODERATE Moderate
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -30%
Nearest declaration peer: Fulton, OH (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Illinois state profile
Coles County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Coles County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Coles · this county 9
Coles · this county
9 declarations
- Fulton · near 9
Fulton · near
9 declarations
- Gallatin · near 9
Gallatin · near
9 declarations
- Hillsdale · near 9
Hillsdale · near
9 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Coles County carries 9 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2982 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Coles County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Coles County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Coles County
9 8th percentile higher than 8% 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
Coles County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Coles County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $16.9M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Drought 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 Coles County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 62 paid claims, totaling $710.4K. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $11.5K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Illinois county averages 12.9 federal declaration records, while Coles County has 9. The gap is 30% 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county carries a high composite score on FEMA's National Risk Index, 70.4/100, rated Relatively Low. Its Expected Annual Loss rating is Relatively Low (roughly $30.8M in annualized losses), and a Relatively Low social-vulnerability profile combined with Relatively High community resilience shapes how much of that raw exposure becomes realized harm. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Drought carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 1.7 modeled event-days per year here, based on 42 historical events on record.
48 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Coles County, IL · 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) Low
7/30
9 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25
9 declarations (0.7x state county average of 13)
Major Disaster Share High
17/25
6 of 9 declarations are major disasters (67%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Coles County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Coles 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
67%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
70
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Coles 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 Moderate | 1.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 286 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 8.4 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 2.4 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.7 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 7.2 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 2.7 times per year |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.4 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 48 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 35 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 32,246 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 2
Tornado 2
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Hurricane 1
Flood 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Coles County's record, 22% 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 - 6 66.7%
of all 9 declarations
Emergency - 3 33.3%
of all 9 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 9 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 9 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4728 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-08-15 |
| 3577 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | EM | Tornado | 2021-12-13 |
| 4489 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-26 |
| 3435 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1960 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Snowstorm | 2011-03-17 |
| 1771 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-06-24 |
| 3230 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-07 |
| 1416 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 2002-05-21 |
| 438 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-06-10 |
Storm Events in Illinois
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Coles County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 7,218 | 9 | 67 | $46.0M |
| Hail | 3,195 | 0 | 0 | $27.1M |
| Winter Weather | 1,363 | 14 | 49 | $1.8M |
| Flood | 1,221 | 14 | 11 | $84.3M |
| Flash Flood | 1,133 | 11 | 3 | $1.1B |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
62
Total Paid
$710.4K
Avg Per Claim
$11.5K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 70.4/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$30.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Landslide Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Hurricane 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: 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 Coles County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought 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
Coles County's closest FEMA peer: Llano County, TX
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Coles County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Similar modeled NRI score
Coles County: NRI composite 70.4 (Relatively Low).
Similar Major-disaster share
Coles County: 6 of 9 of its declarations are Major.
Closest declaration profiles
Coles County shows 9 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
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 Coles County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Coles 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: 70.4 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 9. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Coles County's NFIP claims file (62 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 Coles County?
The most common disaster type in Coles County is Severe Storm, with 2 declarations. Other disaster types include Tornado (2), Biological (2), Snowstorm (1).
How does Coles County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Illinois average?
The typical Illinois county has 12.9 FEMA declaration records; Coles County has 9, or 30% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 57% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Coles County received?
Coles County has received 6 major disaster declarations, representing 67% of all 9 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Coles County filed?
Coles County has 62 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $710.4K in payments, with an average of $11.5K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Coles County?
No. In Coles County, Drought has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $16.9M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Coles County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Coles County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2023.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Coles County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Coles County, Illinois has an overall risk score of 70.4 out of 100 (Relatively Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Low; on community resilience, Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $30.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Coles County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Coles County is Drought (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (Relatively Low) and Winter Weather (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 1.7 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 42 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 Coles County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Illinois profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events