FEMA Records
17
Below median
Minnesota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Cottonwood County, MN
17 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 17
- FEMA declarations
- 14
- Major disasters
- 28
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Cottonwood County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 17 declarations, more than 32% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 4% below the Minnesota county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 28%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 28%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 17
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 43
- 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 27033 · Cottonwood County 17 declarations · rank 2101/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 17
- MAJOR-HEAVY 82%
- RANK-LOWER #2,101
- PHOTO-FINISH Curry
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -4%
Nearest declaration peer: Curry, OR (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Minnesota state profile
Cottonwood County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Cottonwood County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Cottonwood · this county 17
Cottonwood · this county
17 declarations
- Curry · near 17
Curry · near
17 declarations
- Murray · near 17
Murray · near
17 declarations
- Washington · near 17
Washington · near
17 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Cottonwood County carries 17 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2101 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Cottonwood County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Cottonwood County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Cottonwood County
17 32nd percentile higher than 32% 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
Cottonwood County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Cottonwood County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.4M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Winter Weather 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 Cottonwood County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 27.7/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $8.7M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Moderate social-vulnerability score and Relatively High community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Winter Weather carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 22 times per year here, based on 413 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 43 claims and $469.6K 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 Minnesota county averages 17.7 federal declaration records, while Cottonwood County has 17. The gap is 4% 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.
60 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Cottonwood County, MN · 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
17 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
17 declarations (1.0x state county average of 18)
Major Disaster Share Very High
21/25
14 of 17 declarations are major disasters (82%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Cottonwood County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Cottonwood 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
82%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
28
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Cottonwood 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 22 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.5 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 12 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 10 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 3.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 13 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 4,342 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.6 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,899 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 37 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 6
Severe Storm 6
Biological 2
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Cottonwood County's record, 35% of its declarations. Federal flood declarations cover two mechanisms that behave very differently: riverine flooding, which builds over days as a watershed drains and is usually forecast well in advance, and flash flooding, which can arrive in under an hour from rainfall that fell somewhere upstream.
Flood is also the one hazard class where a second federal dataset exists for the same events. The National Flood Insurance Program records what was actually paid on insured losses, so it measures a narrower thing than the declaration count: uninsured damage, and flooding outside mapped special flood hazard areas, never enters it. Reading the two together is more informative than either alone.
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 - 14 82.4%
of all 17 declarations
Emergency - 3 17.6%
of all 17 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 17 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 17 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4797 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-06-28 |
| 4658 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-07-08 |
| 4531 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-07 |
| 3453 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4442 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-06-12 |
| 4390 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2018-09-05 |
| 4113 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-05-03 |
| 1941 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-10-13 |
| 1900 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2010-04-19 |
| 3242 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1212 | TORNADOES AND SEVERE STORMS | DR | Tornado | 1998-04-01 |
| 1158 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-16 |
| 1151 | SEVERE ICE STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-07 |
| 993 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-06-11 |
| 3013 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-06-17 |
| 255 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-04-18 |
| 188 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1965-04-11 |
Storm Events in Minnesota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Cottonwood County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,420 | 13 | 25 | $68.2M |
| Hail | 4,203 | 0 | 0 | $34.5M |
| Extreme Cold/Wind Chill | 1,789 | 7 | 4 | $55.0K |
| Winter Storm | 1,695 | 2 | 17 | $10.0M |
| Heavy Snow | 1,190 | 9 | 14 | $1.0M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
43
Total Paid
$469.6K
Avg Per Claim
$10.9K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 27.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$8.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Lightning 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: Winter Weather
Winter Weather in the model means the accumulation of snow and cold that disrupts rather than destroys: road closures, roof loads, burst pipes and lost heating. Its costs land heavily on transport and on households least able to absorb an interruption.
Worth noting for Cottonwood County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Winter Weather carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), while the county's declaration history is led by Flood. 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
Cottonwood County's closest FEMA peer: Clay County, KS
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Cottonwood County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Cottonwood County shows 17 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Cottonwood County: 14 of 17 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Cottonwood County: NRI composite 27.7 (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 Cottonwood County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Cottonwood 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: 27.7 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 17. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 17 FEMA declarations, Cottonwood 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 Cottonwood County?
The most common disaster type in Cottonwood County is Flood, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (6), Biological (2), Hurricane (1).
How does Cottonwood County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Minnesota average?
The typical Minnesota county has 17.7 FEMA declaration records; Cottonwood County has 17, or 4% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 18% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Cottonwood County received?
Cottonwood County has received 14 major disaster declarations, representing 82% of all 17 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Cottonwood County filed?
Cottonwood County has 43 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $469.6K in payments, with an average of $10.9K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Cottonwood County?
No. In Cottonwood County, Winter Weather has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.4M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Cottonwood County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Cottonwood County was 1997, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Cottonwood County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Cottonwood County, Minnesota has an overall risk score of 27.7 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Moderate, while community resilience comes in at Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $8.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Cottonwood County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Cottonwood County as of the latest release is Winter Weather (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Moderate) and Cold Wave (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts winter weather here at an average of 22 times per year, drawn from 413 historical events on record. The underlying methodology weighs historical event frequency against 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 Cottonwood County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Minnesota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events