FEMA Records
18
Below median
Puerto Rico · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Isabela Municipio, PR
18 FEMA disaster declarations (1975-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of null. Most common hazard: Hurricane.
- 18
- FEMA declarations
- 8
- Major disasters
- Hurricane
- Top hazard
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 72071 · Isabela Municipio 18 declarations · rank 2000/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-LIGHT · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-UNK · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 18
- MAJOR-LIGHT 44%
- RANK-LOWER #2,000
- PHOTO-FINISH Monroe
- NRI-UNK NRI n/a
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Hurricane
- VS-ST-BELOW -34%
Nearest declaration peer: Monroe, TN (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Puerto Rico state profile
Isabela Municipio in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Isabela Municipio and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Brooke · near 18
Brooke · near
18 declarations
- Isabela · this county 18
Isabela · this county
18 declarations
- Mecklenburg · near 18
Mecklenburg · near
18 declarations
- Monroe · near 18
Monroe · near
18 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Isabela Municipio carries 18 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2000 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Isabela Municipio's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Isabela Municipio vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Isabela Municipio
18 37th percentile higher than 37% 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
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Isabela Municipio is led by Hurricane (about $15.9M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Coastal Flooding carries the highest National Risk Index rating (null). 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 Isabela Municipio's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
Even the county's top-rated hazard, Coastal Flooding, only reaches on FEMA's scale, none of the 18 modeled hazards stand out here. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 5 years here.
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.
Start with the state benchmark: a Puerto Rico county averages 27.1 federal declaration records, while Isabela Municipio has 18. The gap is 34% 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.
45 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Isabela Municipio, PR · 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
13/30
18 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.9x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
8/25
18 declarations (0.7x state county average of 27)
Major Disaster Share Moderate
11/25
8 of 18 declarations are major disasters (44%)
Hazard Diversity High
13/20
5 different disaster types declared in Isabela Municipio
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Isabela Municipio
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
44%
Mixed major share
County FIPS
72071
PR state code
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Isabela Municipio?
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Coastal Flooding | roughly once every 5 years | |
| Earthquake | roughly once every 17 years | |
| Hail | roughly once every 38 years | |
| Hurricane | roughly once every 6 years | |
| Heat Wave | 0 modeled event-days per year | |
| Riverine Flooding | roughly once every 3 years | |
| Landslide | roughly once every 2 years | |
| Lightning | an average of 68 times per year | |
| Strong Wind | roughly once every 140,204 years | |
| Tornado | roughly once every 353 years | |
| Tsunami | roughly once every 18 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 10
Severe Storm 3
Biological 2
Flood 2
Earthquake 1
What Hurricane declarations mean here
Hurricane is the most frequent declaration type on Isabela Municipio's federal record, 56% of its declarations. Atlantic tropical systems run on a defined season, 1 June to 30 November, with most activity concentrated between August and October; Pacific and territorial basins run on their own calendars. A single named storm routinely produces one declaration number covering a long corridor of counties at once, well inland as well as on the coast, which is why an affected county's count can jump by several in one year without several separate events having occurred.
One practical distinction matters when reading these records: a tropical declaration usually bundles wind, storm surge and inland rainfall flooding under a single incident, but the insurance behind them is split. Wind damage falls to property insurers, while flood and surge damage is covered only under a separate National Flood Insurance Program policy. That is why a county can show heavy declaration activity and a comparatively small NFIP claims record, or the reverse.
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).
Emergency - 10 55.6%
of all 18 declarations
Major Disaster - 8 44.4%
of all 18 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 5 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1986 | 1 | |
| 1975 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 18 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 18 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3610 | TROPICAL STORM ERNESTO | EM | Severe Storm | 2024-08-13 |
| 4671 | HURRICANE FIONA | DR | Hurricane | 2022-09-21 |
| 3583 | TROPICAL STORM FIONA | EM | Hurricane | 2022-09-18 |
| 3537 | TROPICAL STORM LAURA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-08-22 |
| 3532 | POTENTIAL TROPICAL CYCLONE NINE | EM | Hurricane | 2020-07-29 |
| 4493 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-27 |
| 3452 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 3426 | EARTHQUAKES | EM | Earthquake | 2020-01-07 |
| 3417 | TROPICAL STORM DORIAN | EM | Severe Storm | 2019-08-27 |
| 4339 | HURRICANE MARIA | DR | Hurricane | 2017-09-20 |
| 3391 | HURRICANE MARIA | EM | Hurricane | 2017-09-18 |
| 3326 | HURRICANE IRENE | EM | Hurricane | 2011-08-22 |
| 1552 | TROPICAL STORM JEANNE AND RESULTING LANDSLIDES AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-09-17 |
| 3151 | HURRICANE LENNY | EM | Hurricane | 1999-11-17 |
| 1247 | HURRICANE GEORGES - 18 SEP 98 | DR | Hurricane | 1998-09-24 |
| 1136 | HURRICANE HORTENSE | DR | Hurricane | 1996-09-11 |
| 768 | HEAVY RAINS, FLOODING & MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 1986-07-10 |
| 483 | TROPICAL STORM ELIOISE | DR | Flood | 1975-09-19 |
Storm Events in Puerto Rico
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Isabela Municipio.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | 907 | 31 | 14 | $19.0B |
| Flood | 858 | 2 | 0 | $2.0M |
| Debris Flow | 297 | 0 | 0 | $3.8M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 194 | 1 | 3 | $1.7M |
| Excessive Heat | 184 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Score: N/A/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$37.1M/year
Social Vulnerability
Data Unavailable
Community Resilience
Data Unavailable
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Coastal Flooding
Earthquake
Hail
Hurricane
Heat Wave
Riverine Flooding
Landslide
Lightning
Strong Wind
Tornado
Tsunami
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: Coastal Flooding
Coastal Flooding is modeled separately from riverine flooding because its driver is different: surge, tide and wave action rather than a watershed draining. It is also the hazard whose baseline is moving, since the same storm rides on a higher starting sea level than it used to.
For Isabela Municipio the two measures on this page point the same way: Coastal Flooding is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard, and Hurricane 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
Isabela Municipio's closest FEMA peer: Randall County, TX
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields for Isabela Municipio. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Isabela Municipio shows 18 FEMA declarations, led by Hurricane.
Similar Major-disaster share
Isabela Municipio: 8 of 18 of its declarations are Major.
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 Isabela Municipio - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Isabela Municipio: 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 declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 18. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 18 FEMA declarations, Isabela Municipio 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 Isabela Municipio?
The most common disaster type in Isabela Municipio is Hurricane, with 10 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (3), Biological (2), Flood (2).
How does Isabela Municipio's FEMA declaration record compare with the Puerto Rico average?
The typical Puerto Rico county has 27.1 FEMA declaration records; Isabela Municipio has 18, or 34% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 13% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Isabela Municipio received?
Isabela Municipio has received 8 major disaster declarations, representing 44% of all 18 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Isabela Municipio?
No. In Isabela Municipio, Coastal Flooding has the highest National Risk Index rating (null), while Hurricane leads Expected Annual Loss at about $15.9M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Isabela Municipio?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Isabela Municipio was 2020, with 5 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1975 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Isabela Municipio?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Isabela Municipio, Puerto Rico has an overall risk score of N/A out of 100 (null). On social vulnerability the county rates Data Unavailable; on community resilience, Data Unavailable. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $37.1M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Isabela Municipio?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Isabela Municipio is Coastal Flooding (risk rating: null). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (null) and Hail (null). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts coastal flooding here at roughly once every 5 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.
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 Isabela Municipio · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Puerto Rico profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events