FEMA Records
21
Above median
Arkansas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Crittenden County, AR
21 FEMA disaster declarations (1973-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Moderate. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 21
- FEMA declarations
- 13
- Major disasters
- 83
- NRI risk · Relatively Moderate
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Crittenden 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 in the riskiest 17%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 17%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Moderate
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 21
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 887
- 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 05035 · Crittenden County 21 declarations · rank 1496/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-MID · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 21
- MAJOR-MID 62%
- RANK-LOWER #1,496
- PHOTO-FINISH Montgomery
- NRI-MID 83
- 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
Crittenden County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Crittenden County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Atascosa · near 21
Atascosa · near
21 declarations
- Crittenden · this county 21
Crittenden · 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 Crittenden County carries 21 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1496 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Crittenden County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Crittenden County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Crittenden 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
Crittenden County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Crittenden County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
FEMA's NFIP table contains a substantial paid-claim history for this county: 887 claims and $12.8M in payments. PlainHazard labels 500 or more claims a heavy registry record; that is a reporting bucket, not an official FEMA risk grade. The average paid claim was $14.4K. NFIP totals exclude uninsured flood losses and do not measure how many properties currently carry a policy.
Start with the state benchmark: a Arkansas county averages 24.2 federal declaration records, while Crittenden 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county sits among the highest-risk counties nationally on FEMA's National Risk Index, a composite score of 83.0/100 (Relatively Moderate). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Low (roughly $38.8M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Relatively High and community resilience Relatively Low, both critical modifiers of realized harm here. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Earthquake carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 104 years here.
61 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Crittenden 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
15/25
13 of 21 declarations are major disasters (62%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Crittenden County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Crittenden 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
62%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
83
Relatively Moderate
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Crittenden 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Earthquake | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 104 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively High | an average of 1.4 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Moderate | 23 modeled event-days per year |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 7.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.6 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 60 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 62 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 5.7 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 1.4 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 12,191 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 5
Flood 4
Severe Ice Storm 3
Tornado 3
Hurricane 2
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Crittenden County's record, 24% 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 - 13 61.9%
of all 21 declarations
Emergency - 8 38.1%
of all 21 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 3 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 2 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1988 | 2 | |
| 1982 | 1 | |
| 1980 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 2 | |
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 |
| 4873 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2025-05-21 |
| 3627 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-04-05 |
| 3541 | HURRICANE LAURA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-08-27 |
| 4518 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-03 |
| 3461 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1975 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND ASSOCIATED FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-05-02 |
| 3301 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2009-01-28 |
| 1758 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-05-20 |
| 3215 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-02 |
| 1472 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-06-06 |
| 1400 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-01-24 |
| 1354 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2000-12-29 |
| 3159 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2000-12-28 |
| 1011 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Snowstorm | 1994-02-28 |
| 807 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1987-12-31 |
| 806 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1987-12-17 |
| 3085 | SEVERE STORMS & TORNADOES | EM | Tornado | 1982-04-23 |
| 617 | SEVERE STORMS & TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1980-04-16 |
| 389 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1973-05-29 |
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 Crittenden 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
887
Total Paid
$12.8M
Avg Per Claim
$14.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Moderate
Score: 83.0/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$38.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Earthquake Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively High
Heat Wave Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Hurricane Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Hail Relatively 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: Earthquake
Earthquake is the model's clearest example of a hazard with no season and no warning. Its expected loss is driven less by how often shaking occurs than by how much of the building stock predates modern seismic codes, so exposure can be high in places where nothing has happened for a long time.
Worth noting for Crittenden County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Earthquake 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
Crittenden County's closest FEMA peer: Newport News (city), VA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Crittenden County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Crittenden County shows 21 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Crittenden County: 13 of 21 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Crittenden County: NRI composite 83.0 (Relatively Moderate).
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 Crittenden County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Crittenden 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: 83.0 (Relatively Moderate).
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
Crittenden County's NFIP claims file (887 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 Crittenden County?
The most common disaster type in Crittenden County is Severe Storm, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (4), Severe Ice Storm (3), Tornado (3).
How does Crittenden County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Arkansas average?
The typical Arkansas county has 24.2 FEMA declaration records; Crittenden 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 Crittenden County received?
Crittenden County has received 13 major disaster declarations, representing 62% of all 21 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Crittenden County filed?
Crittenden County has 887 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $12.8M in payments, with an average of $14.4K per claim.
What was the worst year for disasters in Crittenden County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Crittenden County was 2020, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1973 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Crittenden County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Crittenden County, Arkansas has an overall risk score of 83.0 out of 100 (Relatively Moderate). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively High and community resilience is Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $38.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Crittenden County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Crittenden County is Earthquake (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Ice Storm (Relatively High) and Heat Wave (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts earthquake here at roughly once every 104 years. 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 Crittenden County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Arkansas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events