FEMA Records
21
Above median
South Dakota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Hand County, SD
21 FEMA disaster declarations (1969-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 21
- FEMA declarations
- 18
- Major disasters
- 6
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Hand County. Its 21 FEMA declarations are 11% above the South Dakota county mean and exceed the count for 52% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 6%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 6%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 21
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 8
- 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 46059 · Hand County 21 declarations · rank 1533/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 21
- MAJOR-HEAVY 86%
- RANK-LOWER #1,533
- PHOTO-FINISH Montgomery
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-ABOVE +11%
Nearest declaration peer: Montgomery, IN (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · South Dakota state profile
Hand County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Hand County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Atascosa · near 21
Atascosa · near
21 declarations
- Hand · this county 21
Hand · 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 Hand County carries 21 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1533 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Hand County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Hand County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Hand 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
Hand County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Hand County is led by Cold Wave (about $1.7M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Wildfire 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 Hand County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 6.5/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $4.4M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Very Low) and community resilience (Relatively Moderate). Even the county's top-rated hazard, Wildfire, 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 525 years here.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 8 claims and $121.9K 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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Hand County's 21 federal records stand 11% above the South Dakota county mean of 19.0. 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.
65 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Hand County, SD · 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 High
14/25
21 declarations (1.1x state county average of 19)
Major Disaster Share Very High
21/25
18 of 21 declarations are major disasters (86%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Hand County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Hand 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
86%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
6
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Hand 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 525 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 9.1 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 13 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 4 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 18 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 2.7 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,710 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.2 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 6 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 34 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 9
Severe Storm 7
Biological 2
Coastal Storm 1
Snowstorm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Hand County's record, 43% 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 - 18 85.7%
of all 21 declarations
Emergency - 3 14.3%
of all 21 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 3 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1995 | 2 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1986 | 1 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
Show 1 earlier declaration years
| 1969 | 1 | |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4807 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-08-15 |
| 4718 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2023-07-06 |
| 4527 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3475 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4440 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, SNOWSTORM, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-06-07 |
| 1984 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2011-05-13 |
| 1938 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-09-23 |
| 1915 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2010-05-13 |
| 1887 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-03-10 |
| 1774 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-09 |
| 1620 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-12-20 |
| 3234 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Coastal Storm | 2005-09-10 |
| 1173 | SEVERE FLOODING, SEVER WINTER STORMS,HEAVY RAINS HIGH WINDS | DR | Flood | 1997-04-07 |
| 1156 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND BLIZZARD CONDITIONS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-10 |
| 1052 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1995-05-26 |
| 1045 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Snowstorm | 1995-03-14 |
| 1031 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-06-21 |
| 999 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-07-19 |
| 764 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1986-05-03 |
| 3015 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-06-17 |
Show 1 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 257 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-04-18 |
Storm Events in South Dakota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Hand County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,388 | 7 | 21 | $10.7M |
| Hail | 4,801 | 0 | 3 | $4.5M |
| High Wind | 2,277 | 0 | 1 | $35.0K |
| Winter Weather | 2,125 | 20 | 50 | $133.0K |
| Flood | 1,523 | 5 | 0 | $196.2M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
8
Total Paid
$121.9K
Avg Per Claim
$15.2K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 6.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$4.4M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Tornado Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Landslide 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: Wildfire
Wildfire risk in the model reflects fuel, terrain, weather and how much development sits in the wildland-urban interface. It is one of the few hazards where the exposure is materially changed by land management and building choices, not only by where the county happens to be.
Worth noting for Hand County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Low), 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
Hand County's closest FEMA peer: Clay County, IA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Hand County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Hand County shows 21 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Hand County: 18 of 21 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Hand County: NRI composite 6.5 (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 Hand County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Hand 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: 6.5 (Very Low).
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
Most disaster-prone counties
With 21 FEMA declarations, Hand 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 Hand County?
The most common disaster type in Hand County is Flood, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (7), Biological (2), Coastal Storm (1).
How does Hand County's FEMA declaration record compare with the South Dakota average?
FEMA lists 21 declaration records for Hand County. That is 11% above the South Dakota county mean of 19.0. Its count is also 1% 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 Hand County received?
Hand County has received 18 major disaster declarations, representing 86% of all 21 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Hand County filed?
Hand County has 8 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $121.9K in payments, with an average of $15.2K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Hand County?
No. In Hand County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Cold Wave 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 Hand County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Hand County was 2010, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1969 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Hand County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Hand County, South Dakota has an overall risk score of 6.5 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very Low and community resilience is Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $4.4M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Hand County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Hand County as of the latest release is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Cold Wave (Relatively Low) and Drought (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 525 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 Hand County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · South Dakota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events