FEMA Records
24
Above median
Tennessee · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Fentress County, TN
24 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 24
- FEMA declarations
- 18
- Major disasters
- 28
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Fentress County. Its 24 FEMA declarations are 12% above the Tennessee county mean and exceed the count for 66% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 28%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 28%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 24
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 11
- 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 47049 · Fentress County 24 declarations · rank 958/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 24
- MAJOR-MID 75%
- RANK-LOWER #958
- PHOTO-FINISH Eddy
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +12%
Nearest declaration peer: Eddy, ND (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Tennessee state profile
Fentress County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Fentress County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Deuel · near 24
Deuel · near
24 declarations
- Eddy · near 24
Eddy · near
24 declarations
- Fentress · this county 24
Fentress · this county
24 declarations
- Wichita · near 24
Wichita · near
24 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Fentress County carries 24 FEMA declaration records, ranked 958 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Fentress County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Fentress County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Fentress County
24 Top 34% higher than 66% 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
Fentress County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Fentress County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $1.7M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Lightning carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High). 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 Fentress County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 28.4/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.2M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very High social-vulnerability score and Very Low community-resilience score. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Lightning stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 57 times per year here, based on 44,775 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. Fentress County's 24 federal records stand 12% above the Tennessee county mean of 21.4. 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.
70 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Fentress 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) High
17/30
24 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.2x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
14/25
24 declarations (1.1x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
18 of 24 declarations are major disasters (75%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
9 different disaster types declared in Fentress County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Fentress 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
28
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Fentress 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Relatively High | an average of 57 times per year |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.2 times per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 310 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 10 times per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 314 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 5.4 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 36 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 11 modeled event-days per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 0.1 modeled event-days 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 11
Winter Storm 2
Tornado 2
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Flood 2
Hurricane 1
Fire 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Fentress County's record, 46% 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 - 18 75.0%
of all 24 declarations
Emergency - 5 20.8%
of all 24 declarations
Fire Management - 1 4.2%
of all 24 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 2 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 2 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
Show 4 earlier declaration years
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 24 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 24 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 |
| 4712 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADO | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-05-17 |
| 4601 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 2021-05-08 |
| 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 |
| 1974 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND ASSOCIATED FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-05-01 |
| 1965 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-03-31 |
| 1745 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-02-07 |
| 3217 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1456 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-03-20 |
| 1441 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOS | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-11-13 |
| 1408 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-04-05 |
| 2347 | TN - COOKEVILLE FIRE COMPLEX - 11/03/00 | FM | Fire | 2000-11-03 |
| 1260 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1999-01-15 |
| 1197 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-01-13 |
Show 4 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1010 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM,FLASH FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-02-28 |
| 3095 | SEVERE SNOWFALL, WINTER STORM | EM | Snowstorm | 1993-03-14 |
| 889 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1991-01-04 |
| 424 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
Storm Events in Tennessee
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Fentress 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
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 28.4/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.2M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Lightning Relatively High
Landslide Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Hurricane Very Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Heat Wave 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: Lightning
Lightning is modeled as a high-frequency, low-per-event hazard: strike counts are large, but each strike affects a very small area. Its aggregate cost accumulates through structure fires, electrical and electronic damage, and it is one of the few hazards whose risk is essentially continuous through the season rather than episodic.
For Fentress County the two measures on this page point the same way: Lightning is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively High), 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
Fentress County's closest FEMA peer: Windham County, VT
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Fentress County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Fentress County shows 24 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Fentress County: 18 of 24 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Fentress County: NRI composite 28.4 (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 Fentress County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Fentress 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: 28.4 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 24. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 24 FEMA declarations, Fentress 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 Fentress County?
The most common disaster type in Fentress County is Severe Storm, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Winter Storm (2), Tornado (2), Severe Ice Storm (2).
How does Fentress County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Tennessee average?
FEMA lists 24 declaration records for Fentress County. That is 12% above the Tennessee county mean of 21.4. Its count is also 16% 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 Fentress County received?
Fentress County has received 18 major disaster declarations, representing 75% of all 24 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Fentress County?
No. In Fentress County, Lightning has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.7M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Fentress County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Fentress County was 2003, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Fentress County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Fentress County, Tennessee has an overall risk score of 28.4 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Very High, while community resilience comes in at Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.2M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Fentress County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Fentress County is Lightning (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Landslide (Relatively Low) and Cold Wave (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts lightning here at an average of 57 times per year, drawn from 44,775 historical events on record. FEMA derives these ratings from historical event frequency, the assets exposed, and the community's vulnerability profile.
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 Fentress County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Tennessee profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events