FEMA Records
16
Below median
South Dakota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Hughes County, SD
16 FEMA disaster declarations (1969-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 16
- FEMA declarations
- 13
- Major disasters
- 16
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Hughes 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 16% below the South Dakota county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 16%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 16%
- 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
- 88
- 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 46065 · Hughes County 16 declarations · rank 2236/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 16
- MAJOR-HEAVY 81%
- RANK-LOWER #2,236
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -16%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · South Dakota state profile
Hughes County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Hughes County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Frontier · near 16
Frontier · near
16 declarations
- Greene · near 16
Greene · near
16 declarations
- Hughes · this county 16
Hughes · this county
16 declarations
- Terrell · near 16
Terrell · near
16 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Hughes County carries 16 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2236 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Hughes County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Hughes County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Hughes 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
Hughes County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Hughes County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $5.9M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively 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 Hughes County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 88 paid claims, totaling $695.2K. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $7.9K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a South Dakota county averages 19.0 federal declaration records, while Hughes County has 16. The gap is 16% 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 16.5/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $9.9M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very Low social-vulnerability score and Very High community-resilience score. 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 557 years here.
58 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Hughes 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) Moderate
12/30
16 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
11/25
16 declarations (0.8x state county average of 19)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
13 of 16 declarations are major disasters (81%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Hughes County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Hughes 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
81%
Mostly major
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 Hughes 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 557 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 16 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 6.7 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 35 modeled event-days per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.3 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 3.2 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 2.6 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 34 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,747 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 6
Flood 5
Biological 2
Coastal Storm 1
Snowstorm 1
Drought 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Hughes County's record, 38% 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 - 13 81.3%
of all 16 declarations
Emergency - 3 18.8%
of all 16 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1995 | 2 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 4233 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2015-07-30 |
| 4137 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-08-02 |
| 1984 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2011-05-13 |
| 1887 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-03-10 |
| 1774 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-09 |
| 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 |
| 3015 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-06-17 |
| 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 Hughes 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
88
Total Paid
$695.2K
Avg Per Claim
$7.9K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 16.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$9.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Hail Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Earthquake 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 Hughes 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 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
Hughes County's closest FEMA peer: Page County, IA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Hughes County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Hughes County shows 16 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Hughes County: 13 of 16 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Hughes County: NRI composite 16.5 (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 Hughes County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Hughes 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: 16.5 (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
Understanding disaster data
Hughes County's NFIP claims file (88 claims) and FEMA declaration history measure different federal records - this guide separates them from modeled NRI risk.
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 Hughes County?
The most common disaster type in Hughes County is Severe Storm, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (5), Biological (2), Coastal Storm (1).
How does Hughes County's FEMA declaration record compare with the South Dakota average?
The typical South Dakota county has 19.0 FEMA declaration records; Hughes County has 16, or 16% 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 Hughes County received?
Hughes County has received 13 major disaster declarations, representing 81% of all 16 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Hughes County filed?
Hughes County has 88 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $695.2K in payments, with an average of $7.9K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Hughes County?
No. In Hughes County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $5.9M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Hughes County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Hughes County was 1995, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1969 to 2020.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Hughes County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Hughes County, South Dakota has an overall risk score of 16.5 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very Low and community resilience is Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $9.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Hughes County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Hughes County is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Winter Weather (Relatively Moderate) and Ice Storm (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 557 years. 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.
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 Hughes County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · South Dakota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events