FEMA Records
20
Above median
Tennessee · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
DeKalb County, TN
20 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 20
- FEMA declarations
- 15
- Major disasters
- 25
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
DeKalb County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 20 declarations, more than 46% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 7% below the Tennessee county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 25%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 25%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 20
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 17
- 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 47041 · DeKalb County 20 declarations · rank 1725/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 20
- MAJOR-MID 75%
- RANK-LOWER #1,725
- PHOTO-FINISH Monona
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -7%
Nearest declaration peer: Monona, IA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Tennessee state profile
DeKalb County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among DeKalb County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Cleveland · near 20
Cleveland · near
20 declarations
- DeKalb · this county 20
DeKalb · this county
20 declarations
- Monona · near 20
Monona · near
20 declarations
- Tallapoosa · near 20
Tallapoosa · near
20 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows DeKalb County carries 20 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1725 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How DeKalb County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
DeKalb County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · DeKalb County
20 46th percentile higher than 46% 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
DeKalb County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for DeKalb County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Earthquake 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 DeKalb County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 25.5/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $7.5M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Moderate social-vulnerability score and Relatively Low community-resilience score. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Earthquake, 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 334 years here.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 17 claims and $161.1K 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 Tennessee county averages 21.4 federal declaration records, while DeKalb County has 20. The gap is 7% 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.
65 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
DeKalb County, TN · 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
14/30
20 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.0x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
20 declarations (0.9x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
15 of 20 declarations are major disasters (75%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in DeKalb County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - DeKalb 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
75%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
25
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike DeKalb 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 Low | roughly once every 334 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 6 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 5.9 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 16 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 29 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 59 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 2.6 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 7,150 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 8
Winter Storm 2
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Flood 2
Tornado 2
Hurricane 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on DeKalb County's record, 40% 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 - 15 75.0%
of all 20 declarations
Emergency - 5 25.0%
of all 20 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 2 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2012 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
Show 3 earlier declaration years
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1975 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 20 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 20 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4898 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2026-02-06 |
| 3635 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 3625 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-04-02 |
| 4594 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-04-21 |
| 4514 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-02 |
| 3473 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4427 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2019-04-17 |
| 4211 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2015-04-02 |
| 4060 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS AND | DR | Severe Storm | 2012-03-16 |
| 1909 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-05-04 |
| 3217 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1464 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-05-08 |
| 1408 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-04-05 |
| 1260 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1999-01-15 |
| 1197 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-01-13 |
| 1167 | HEAVY RAINS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, HAIL, HIGH WINDS | DR | Tornado | 1997-03-07 |
| 1010 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM,FLASH FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-02-28 |
| 3095 | SEVERE SNOWFALL, WINTER STORM | EM | Snowstorm | 1993-03-14 |
| 459 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1975-03-22 |
| 424 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
Storm Events in Tennessee
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to DeKalb County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 6,558 | 22 | 58 | $107.0M |
| Hail | 1,690 | 0 | 0 | $545.5K |
| Heat | 1,343 | 9 | 15 | $0 |
| Flash Flood | 1,264 | 55 | 3 | $334.4M |
| Winter Weather | 1,088 | 5 | 0 | $261.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
17
Total Paid
$161.1K
Avg Per Claim
$9.5K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 25.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$7.5M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Earthquake Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Hurricane Very Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Heat Wave 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: 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 DeKalb County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Earthquake carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Low), 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
DeKalb County's closest FEMA peer: Fulton County, IL
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for DeKalb County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
DeKalb County shows 20 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
DeKalb County: 15 of 20 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
DeKalb County: NRI composite 25.5 (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 DeKalb County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for DeKalb 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: 25.5 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 20. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 20 FEMA declarations, DeKalb 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 DeKalb County?
The most common disaster type in DeKalb County is Severe Storm, with 8 declarations. Other disaster types include Winter Storm (2), Severe Ice Storm (2), Biological (2).
How does DeKalb County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Tennessee average?
The typical Tennessee county has 21.4 FEMA declaration records; DeKalb County has 20, or 7% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 3% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has DeKalb County received?
DeKalb County has received 15 major disaster declarations, representing 75% of all 20 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has DeKalb County filed?
DeKalb County has 17 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $161.1K in payments, with an average of $9.5K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in DeKalb County?
No. In DeKalb County, Earthquake has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.6M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in DeKalb County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in DeKalb County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for DeKalb County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, DeKalb County, Tennessee has an overall risk score of 25.5 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Moderate; on community resilience, Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $7.5M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to DeKalb County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for DeKalb County is Earthquake (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Winter Weather (Relatively Low) and Landslide (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts earthquake here at roughly once every 334 years. 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 DeKalb County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Tennessee profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events