FEMA Records
29
High volume
Texas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Houston County, TX
29 FEMA disaster declarations (1989-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 29
- FEMA declarations
- 19
- Major disasters
- 61
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Houston County. Its 29 FEMA declarations are 39% above the Texas county mean and exceed the count for 85% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it in the riskiest 39%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Riskiest 39%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 29
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 28
- 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 48225 · Houston County 29 declarations · rank 449/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 29
- MAJOR-MID 66%
- RANK-MID #449
- PHOTO-FINISH Bath
- NRI-LOW 61
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Fire
- VS-ST-ABOVE +39%
Nearest declaration peer: Bath, KY (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Texas state profile
Houston County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Houston County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bath · near 29
Bath · near
29 declarations
- Houston · this county 29
Houston · this county
29 declarations
- Lenoir · near 29
Lenoir · near
29 declarations
- Walthall · near 29
Walthall · near
29 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Houston County carries 29 FEMA declaration records, ranked 449 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Houston County ranks in the national declaration registry
Houston County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Houston County
29 Top 15% higher than 85% 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
Houston County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Houston County is led by Cold Wave (about $3.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Lightning carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Very 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 Houston County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county carries a high composite score on FEMA's National Risk Index, 60.7/100, rated Relatively Low. Its Expected Annual Loss rating is Very Low (roughly $13.1M in annualized losses), and a Very High social-vulnerability profile combined with Relatively Low community resilience shapes how much of that raw exposure becomes realized harm. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Lightning stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Very High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 64 times per year here, based on 89,712 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 28 claims and $382.8K 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. Houston County's 29 federal records stand 39% above the Texas county mean of 20.9. 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.
74 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Houston 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) High
21/30
29 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
17/25
29 declarations (1.4x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share High
16/25
19 of 29 declarations are major disasters (66%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
9 different disaster types declared in Houston County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Houston 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
66%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
61
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Houston 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 | Very High | an average of 64 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 31 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 513 years |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 17 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 12 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 2.3 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 2.2 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,484 years |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 2.6 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 6
Flood 6
Fire 6
Severe Storm 4
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Other 1
Coastal Storm 1
Drought 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Houston County's record, 21% of its declarations. Wildfire is the one hazard here with its own dedicated federal instrument: the Fire Management Assistance Grant, which appears in this data as an FM record. An FMAG can be authorised while a fire is still burning, on a timescale of hours, because its purpose is to reimburse the cost of fighting a fire that threatens to become a major disaster.
That distinction matters when comparing counties. An FM declaration is not a presidential major disaster declaration and does not carry the same assistance programmes, so a fire-heavy county's total is not directly comparable with a hurricane-heavy county's total unless the declaration types are separated, which is why they are listed separately on this page.
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 - 19 65.5%
of all 29 declarations
Emergency - 10 34.5%
of all 29 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 2 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 3 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
Show 5 earlier declaration years
| 1995 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1989 | 2 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 29 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 29 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4798 | HURRICANE BERYL | DR | Hurricane | 2024-07-09 |
| 4781 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-05-17 |
| 4586 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-19 |
| 3554 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-14 |
| 3540 | TROPICAL STORMS MARCO AND LAURA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-08-24 |
| 4485 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-25 |
| 3458 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4416 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-02-25 |
| 4272 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2016-06-11 |
| 4223 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2015-05-29 |
| 4029 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2011-09-09 |
| 1999 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2011-07-01 |
| 1791 | HURRICANE IKE | DR | Hurricane | 2008-09-13 |
| 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 |
| 3171 | LOSS OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA | EM | Other | 2003-02-01 |
| 1379 | TX-TROPICAL STORM ALLISON-06-06-2001 | DR | Coastal Storm | 2001-06-09 |
Show 9 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3142 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARDS | EM | Fire | 1999-09-01 |
| 1239 | TROPICAL STORM CHARLEY | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-08-26 |
| 3117 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Fire | 1996-02-23 |
| 1041 | SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1994-10-18 |
| 3113 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Drought | 1993-09-10 |
| 930 | SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS | DR | Flood | 1991-12-26 |
| 863 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-05-02 |
| 828 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1989-05-19 |
| 823 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1989-04-23 |
Storm Events in Texas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Houston 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
28
Total Paid
$382.8K
Avg Per Claim
$13.7K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 60.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$13.1M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Lightning Very High
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Hurricane Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Hail 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.
Worth noting for Houston County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Lightning carries the highest modeled rating (Very High), while the county's declaration history is led by Fire. 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
Houston County's closest FEMA peer: Walthall County, MS
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Houston County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Houston County shows 29 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Houston County: 19 of 29 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Houston County: NRI composite 60.7 (Relatively 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 Houston County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Houston 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: 60.7 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 29. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 29 FEMA declarations, Houston 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 Houston County?
The most common disaster type in Houston County is Fire, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (6), Flood (6), Severe Storm (4).
How does Houston County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Texas average?
FEMA lists 29 declaration records for Houston County. That is 39% above the Texas county mean of 20.9. Its count is also 40% 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 Houston County received?
Houston County has received 19 major disaster declarations, representing 66% of all 29 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Houston County filed?
Houston County has 28 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $382.8K in payments, with an average of $13.7K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Houston County?
No. In Houston County, Lightning has the highest National Risk Index rating (Very High), while Cold Wave 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 Houston County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Houston County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1989 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Houston County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Houston County, Texas has an overall risk score of 60.7 out of 100 (Relatively Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very High and community resilience is Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $13.1M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Houston County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Houston County as of the latest release is Lightning (risk rating: Very High). Other significant hazards include Cold Wave (Relatively Moderate) and Drought (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts lightning here at an average of 64 times per year, drawn from 89,712 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 Houston County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Texas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events