FEMA Records
21
Above median
Indiana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Crawford County, IN
21 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 21
- FEMA declarations
- 17
- Major disasters
- 26
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Crawford County. Its 21 FEMA declarations are 23% above the Indiana county mean and exceed the count for 52% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 26%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 26%
- 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
- 136
- 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 18025 · Crawford County 21 declarations · rank 1424/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 21
- MAJOR-HEAVY 81%
- RANK-LOWER #1,424
- PHOTO-FINISH Montgomery
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +23%
Nearest declaration peer: Montgomery, IN (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Indiana state profile
Crawford County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Crawford County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Atascosa · near 21
Atascosa · near
21 declarations
- Crawford · this county 21
Crawford · 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 Crawford County carries 21 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1424 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Crawford County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Crawford County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Crawford 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
Crawford County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Crawford County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.4M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Tornado 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 Crawford County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 136 paid claims, totaling $2.2M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $15.9K 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. Crawford County's 21 federal records stand 23% above the Indiana county mean of 17.1. 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 25.8/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $5.9M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very High social-vulnerability score and Very Low community-resilience score. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Tornado, 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 roughly once every 4 years here, based on 6 historical events on record.
68 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Crawford County, IN · 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 High
15/25
21 declarations (1.2x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
17 of 21 declarations are major disasters (81%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Crawford County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Crawford 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
81%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
26
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Crawford 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 346 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 5.7 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 9.5 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 5.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 1.7 times per year |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 3.5 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 3.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 51 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 174 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 36,414 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 11
Flood 4
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Snowstorm 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Crawford County's record, 52% 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 - 17 81.0%
of all 21 declarations
Emergency - 4 19.0%
of all 21 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 2004 | 2 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 2 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1979 | 1 | |
Show 1 earlier declaration years
| 1974 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3641 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4882 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2025-07-22 |
| 4515 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-03 |
| 3456 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4363 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2018-05-04 |
| 1997 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-06-23 |
| 1828 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-03-05 |
| 1795 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-09-23 |
| 3238 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1573 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-01-21 |
| 3197 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2005-01-11 |
| 1542 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-09-01 |
| 1520 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-06-03 |
| 1418 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-06-13 |
| 1234 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-07-22 |
| 1165 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-03-06 |
| 1125 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1996-07-03 |
| 1109 | BLIZZARD OF 96 | DR | Flood | 1996-04-02 |
| 869 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-06-04 |
| 596 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1979-07-31 |
Show 1 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 423 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
Storm Events in Indiana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Crawford County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,886 | 16 | 73 | $57.6M |
| Hail | 1,643 | 0 | 0 | $1.7M |
| Winter Weather | 1,166 | 32 | 80 | $2.5M |
| Flood | 850 | 13 | 3 | $16.0M |
| Flash Flood | 648 | 14 | 5 | $97.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
136
Total Paid
$2.2M
Avg Per Claim
$15.9K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 25.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$5.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Tornado Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Hail Very Low
Drought Very Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Lightning Very 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: Tornado
Tornado exposure is the most spatially concentrated in the model: total destruction along a narrow corridor with intact property either side. County-level averages therefore understate severity badly for anyone actually in the path, and overstate it for everyone else.
For Crawford County the two measures on this page point the same way: Tornado 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
Crawford County's closest FEMA peer: Sibley County, MN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Crawford County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Crawford County shows 21 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Crawford County: 17 of 21 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Crawford County: NRI composite 25.8 (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 Crawford County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Crawford 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: 25.8 (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
Understanding disaster data
Crawford County's NFIP claims file (136 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 Crawford County?
The most common disaster type in Crawford County is Severe Storm, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (4), Biological (2), Winter Storm (1).
How does Crawford County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Indiana average?
FEMA lists 21 declaration records for Crawford County. That is 23% above the Indiana county mean of 17.1. Its count is also 1% 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 Crawford County received?
Crawford County has received 17 major disaster declarations, representing 81% of all 21 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Crawford County filed?
Crawford County has 136 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $2.2M in payments, with an average of $15.9K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Crawford County?
No. In Crawford County, Tornado has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), 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 Crawford County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Crawford County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Crawford County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Crawford County, Indiana has an overall risk score of 25.8 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very High; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $5.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Crawford County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Crawford County is Tornado (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Landslide (Very Low) and Earthquake (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts tornado here at roughly once every 4 years, drawn from 6 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 Crawford County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Indiana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events