FEMA Records
35
Very high volume
Oklahoma · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Dewey County, OK
35 FEMA disaster declarations (1973-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 35
- FEMA declarations
- 25
- Major disasters
- 16
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Dewey County. Its 35 FEMA declarations are 9% above the Oklahoma county mean and exceed the count for 93% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 16%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 16%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 35
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 18
- severe storm declarations, the most common hazard here
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Fire Management Assistance (FM) records, which are not presidential disaster declarations, alongside Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 40043 · Dewey County 35 declarations · rank 213/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-UPPER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 35
- MAJOR-MID 71%
- RANK-UPPER #213
- PHOTO-FINISH Okeechobee
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +9%
Nearest declaration peer: Okeechobee, FL (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Oklahoma state profile
Dewey County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Dewey County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Brunswick · near 35
Brunswick · near
35 declarations
- Dewey · this county 35
Dewey · this county
35 declarations
- Indian River · near 35
Indian River · near
35 declarations
- Okeechobee · near 35
Okeechobee · near
35 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Dewey County carries 35 FEMA declaration records, ranked 213 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Dewey County ranks in the national declaration registry
Dewey County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Dewey County
35 Top 7% higher than 93% 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
Dewey County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Dewey County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 15.6/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $5.8M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Moderate social-vulnerability score and Relatively Moderate community-resilience score. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Ice Storm stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 1 years here, based on 64 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Dewey County's 35 federal records stand 9% above the Oklahoma county mean of 32.2. 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.
72 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Dewey County, OK · 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) Very High
25/30
35 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.7x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
14/25
35 declarations (1.1x state county average of 32)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
25 of 35 declarations are major disasters (71%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Dewey County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Dewey 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
71%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
16
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Dewey 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Storm | Relatively High | roughly once every 1 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 90 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 192 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 7.9 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 2.8 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 7.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 9.3 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 894 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 168 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 49 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 18
Severe Ice Storm 8
Fire 5
Biological 2
Hurricane 1
Flood 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Dewey County's record, 51% 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 - 25 71.4%
of all 35 declarations
Emergency - 7 20.0%
of all 35 declarations
Fire Management - 3 8.6%
of all 35 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2016 | 2 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 3 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 5 | |
Show 7 earlier declaration years
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1975 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 35 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 35 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5628 | JUMPING JUNIPER FIRE | FM | Fire | 2026-03-22 |
| 5557 | 840 ROAD FIRE | FM | Fire | 2025-03-14 |
| 4587 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-24 |
| 3555 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-17 |
| 4575 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2020-12-21 |
| 4530 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3462 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4438 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-06-01 |
| 4373 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2018-06-25 |
| 5232 | RHEA FIRE COMPLEX | FM | Fire | 2018-04-13 |
| 4315 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-05-26 |
| 4299 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-02-10 |
| 4256 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-02-10 |
| 4247 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2015-12-29 |
| 4222 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2015-05-26 |
| 4109 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-04-08 |
| 3316 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2011-02-02 |
| 1883 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2010-03-05 |
| 1876 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-25 |
| 3308 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2010-01-30 |
Show 15 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1803 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-10-09 |
| 1775 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-09 |
| 3280 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2007-12-10 |
| 1718 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-08-24 |
| 1712 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-07-07 |
| 1707 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-06-07 |
| 1678 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-02-01 |
| 3272 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2007-01-14 |
| 1623 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-10 |
| 3219 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1401 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2002-02-01 |
| 1384 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-06-29 |
| 991 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-05-12 |
| 453 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-11-26 |
| 392 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, & TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 1973-06-13 |
Storm Events in Oklahoma
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Dewey County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 5,894 | 0 | 1 | $19.8M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,592 | 6 | 36 | $199.5M |
| Drought | 2,935 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Heat | 2,134 | 7 | 428 | $0 |
| Excessive Heat | 1,771 | 2 | 401 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 15.6/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$5.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Ice Storm Relatively High
Drought Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Riverine Flooding 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: Ice Storm
Ice storms load power lines and tree limbs with accumulating freezing rain until they fail. The characteristic cost is infrastructure and multi-day power loss across a wide area rather than structural damage to buildings, which is why their consequences often outlast the weather that caused them.
Worth noting for Dewey County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Ice Storm carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively High), 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
Dewey County's closest FEMA peer: Adjuntas Municipio, PR
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Dewey County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Dewey County shows 35 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Dewey County: 25 of 35 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Dewey County: NRI composite 15.6 (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 Dewey County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Dewey 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: 15.6 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 35. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 35 FEMA declarations, Dewey 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 Dewey County?
The most common disaster type in Dewey County is Severe Storm, with 18 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Ice Storm (8), Fire (5), Biological (2).
How does Dewey County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Oklahoma average?
FEMA lists 35 declaration records for Dewey County. That is 9% above the Oklahoma county mean of 32.2. Its count is also 69% 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 Dewey County received?
Dewey County has received 25 major disaster declarations, representing 71% of all 35 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Dewey County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Dewey County was 2007, with 5 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1973 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Dewey County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Dewey County, Oklahoma has an overall risk score of 15.6 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Moderate, while community resilience comes in at Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $5.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Dewey County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Dewey County is Ice Storm (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Wildfire (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts ice storm here at roughly once every 1 years, drawn from 64 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.
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 Dewey County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Oklahoma profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events