FEMA Records
16
Below median
Texas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Falls County, TX
16 FEMA disaster declarations (1975-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 16
- FEMA declarations
- 9
- Major disasters
- 26
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Falls County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 16 declarations, more than 27% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 23% below the Texas county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 26%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 26%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 16
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 9
- 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 48145 · Falls County 16 declarations · rank 2269/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 16
- MAJOR-MID 56%
- RANK-LOWER #2,269
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -23%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Texas state profile
Falls County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Falls County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Falls · this county 16
Falls · this county
16 declarations
- Frontier · near 16
Frontier · near
16 declarations
- Greene · near 16
Greene · near
16 declarations
- Terrell · near 16
Terrell · near
16 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Falls County carries 16 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2269 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Falls County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Falls County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Falls County
16 27th percentile higher than 27% 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
Falls County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Falls County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $1.9M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Tornado 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 Falls County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 26.2/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.0M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very High social-vulnerability score and Relatively Low community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Tornado carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 2 years here, based on 10 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 9 claims and $177.7K 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 Texas county averages 20.9 federal declaration records, while Falls County has 16. The gap is 23% 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.
56 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Falls County, TX · 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
16 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
16 declarations (0.8x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share High
14/25
9 of 16 declarations are major disasters (56%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Falls County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Falls 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
56%
Major-heavy
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 Falls 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 Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 21 years |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 46 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.6 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 52 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,055 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 16 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 2.8 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 1.7 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,567 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 11 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 3
Fire 3
Hurricane 3
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Severe Storm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Falls County's record, 19% 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 - 9 56.3%
of all 16 declarations
Emergency - 7 43.8%
of all 16 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1975 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 16 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 16 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4781 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-05-17 |
| 4705 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2023-04-21 |
| 4586 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-19 |
| 3554 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-14 |
| 4485 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-25 |
| 3458 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4272 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2016-06-11 |
| 3284 | WILDFIRES | EM | Fire | 2008-03-14 |
| 1624 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-11 |
| 1606 | HURRICANE RITA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-09-24 |
| 3261 | HURRICANE RITA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-21 |
| 3216 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-02 |
| 3142 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARDS | EM | Fire | 1999-09-01 |
| 1239 | TROPICAL STORM CHARLEY | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-08-26 |
| 3113 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Drought | 1993-09-10 |
| 454 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-11-30 |
Storm Events in Texas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Falls County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 14,072 | 0 | 15 | $7.4B |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 10,293 | 41 | 141 | $369.9M |
| Drought | 7,032 | 0 | 0 | $86.0K |
| Flash Flood | 4,728 | 338 | 24 | $47.6B |
| Heat | 4,079 | 119 | 405 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
9
Total Paid
$177.7K
Avg Per Claim
$19.7K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 26.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.0M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Hurricane Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Very Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Landslide 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.
Worth noting for Falls County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Tornado 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
Falls County's closest FEMA peer: Pulaski County, IN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Falls County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Falls County shows 16 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Falls County: 9 of 16 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Falls County: NRI composite 26.2 (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 Falls County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Falls 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: 26.2 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 16. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 16 FEMA declarations, Falls 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 Falls County?
The most common disaster type in Falls County is Flood, with 3 declarations. Other disaster types include Fire (3), Hurricane (3), Severe Ice Storm (2).
How does Falls County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Texas average?
The typical Texas county has 20.9 FEMA declaration records; Falls County has 16, or 23% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 23% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Falls County received?
Falls County has received 9 major disaster declarations, representing 56% of all 16 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Falls County filed?
Falls County has 9 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $177.7K in payments, with an average of $19.7K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Falls County?
No. In Falls County, Tornado has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.9M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Falls County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Falls County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1975 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Falls County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Falls County, Texas has an overall risk score of 26.2 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very High; on community resilience, Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.0M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Falls County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Falls County is Tornado (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Hurricane (Relatively Low) and Drought (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts tornado here at roughly once every 2 years, drawn from 10 historical events on record. 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 Falls County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Texas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events