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Minnesota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index

Isanti County, MN

10 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.

10
FEMA declarations
7
Major disasters
27
NRI risk · Very Low
Flood
Top hazard

The verdict

Isanti County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 10 declarations, more than 10% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 44% below the Minnesota county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 27%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.

Safer than 27%
of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
Very Low
FEMA National Risk Index rating
10
FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
26
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.

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How does Isanti County compare?

Isanti County vs. all counties in this dataset

FEMA disaster declarations, all-time

10 10th percentile higher than 10% of 3,266 counties

This county 0 90 all U.S. counties FEMA tracks, bucketed by value

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 · 2026-08-03

Isanti County's FEMA Risk Index score

FEMA National Risk Index composite score vs. the Minnesota county average

0/100100/100Minnesota avg42/10026.9/100
FEMA National Risk Index composite score vs. the Minnesota county average

Which hazard drives modeled loss here?

FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Isanti County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $9.5M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), 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 Isanti County's hazard record show?

Declaration frequency

Nationally, Isanti County's 10 FEMA records form a high-volume history; within Minnesota, however, the count is 44% below the county mean. 7 entries carry the Major Disaster classification. The largest incident group is Flood, appearing 4 times. The full 55-year record averages 0.2 declarations annually. A DR label alone does not say whether Individual Assistance, Public Assistance, or both followed.

FEMA National Risk Index

This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 26.9/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Low (roughly $15.3M 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 1,241 years here.

Reading the federal records together

This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 26 claims and $226.4K 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.

Start with the state benchmark: a Minnesota county averages 17.7 federal declaration records, while Isanti County has 10. The gap is 44% 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

Isanti County, MN · 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) Low
7/30

10 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.5x national county average)

County Disaster Density Moderate
7/25

10 declarations (0.6x state county average of 18)

Major Disaster Share High
18/25

7 of 10 declarations are major disasters (70%)

Hazard Diversity High
13/20

5 different disaster types declared in Isanti County

Historical Declaration Activity

Activity Band

High

vs. Minnesota Avg

-44%

State avg: 17.7

vs. National Avg

-52%

National avg: 20.7

Avg Per Year

0.2

Over 55 years

FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Isanti County

Isanti County NRI risk profile 8-axis FEMA National Risk Index radar showing per-hazard scores for Earthquake 8, Flood 25, Hurricane 0, Tornado 25, Wildfire 25, Drought 25, Heat Wave 8, Winter Storm 25. The simple mean of these eight displayed scores is 18 of 100. Earthquake Flood Hurricane Tornado Wildfire Drought Heat Wave Winter Storm 18 8-hazard mean
Isanti County NRI risk profile FIPS 27059 · displayed-hazard mean 18/100
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.

FEMA Records

10

Low volume

Major Disaster share

70%

Major-heavy

NRI risk score

27

Very Low

Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release

How often does each hazard strike Isanti 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 1,241 years
Hail Relatively Low an average of 5.4 times per year
Tornado Relatively Low roughly once every 4 years
Strong Wind Relatively Low an average of 3.6 times per year
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low roughly once every 5 years
Lightning Relatively Low an average of 33 times per year
Heat Wave Very Low 3 modeled event-days per year
Cold Wave Relatively Low an average of 10 times per year
Landslide Very Low roughly once every 15 years
Drought Relatively Low 2.3 modeled event-days per year
Ice Storm Relatively Low roughly once every 2 years
Winter Weather Relatively Low an average of 17 times per year
Earthquake Very Low roughly once every 4,367 years

Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release

Disaster Types

Flood 4
Biological 2
Severe Storm 2
Hurricane 1
Drought 1

What Flood declarations mean here

Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Isanti County's record, 40% 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 - 7 70.0%

of all 10 declarations

Emergency - 3 30.0%

of all 10 declarations

FEMA Declarations Timeline

Year Declarations
2020 2
2011 1
2005 1
2001 1
1997 1
1976 1
1972 1
1969 1
1965 1

Disaster Declarations

How the 10 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.

Download these 10 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.

DR# Title Type Incident Date
4531 COVID-19 PANDEMIC DR Biological 2020-04-07
3453 COVID-19 EM Biological 2020-03-13
4009 SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES DR Severe Storm 2011-07-28
3242 HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION EM Hurricane 2005-09-13
1370 SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES DR Flood 2001-05-16
1187 SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, HIGH WINDS, FLOODING DR Severe Storm 1997-08-25
3013 DROUGHT EM Drought 1976-06-17
347 SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING DR Flood 1972-08-01
255 FLOODING DR Flood 1969-04-18
188 FLOODING DR Flood 1965-04-11

Storm Events in Minnesota

Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Isanti County.

Storm Type Events Fatalities Injuries Property Damage
Thunderstorm Wind 4,420 13 25 $68.2M
Hail 4,203 0 0 $34.5M
Extreme Cold/Wind Chill 1,789 7 4 $55.0K
Winter Storm 1,695 2 17 $10.0M
Heavy Snow 1,190 9 14 $1.0M

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025

NFIP Flood Insurance Claims

Total Claims

26

Total Paid

$226.4K

Avg Per Claim

$8.7K

Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data

FEMA National Risk Index

Overall Risk

Very Low

Score: 26.9/100

Expected Annual Loss

Relatively Low

$15.3M/year

Social Vulnerability

Very Low

Community Resilience

Very High

Hazard Risk Breakdown

Wildfire Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Drought Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively 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 Isanti 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

Isanti County's closest FEMA peer: White County, IL

Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Isanti County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.

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 Isanti County - capture-dated entries only.

Further reading for this county

Most disaster-prone counties

With 10 FEMA declarations, Isanti County sits in the high-volume declaration band - see how that count ranks against other U.S. counties.
More PlainHazard guides

Related

Minnesota State Profile All Counties Most Disasters All Hazard Types

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most common disaster type in Isanti County?
The most common disaster type in Isanti County is Flood, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Severe Storm (2), Hurricane (1).
How does Isanti County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Minnesota average?
The typical Minnesota county has 17.7 FEMA declaration records; Isanti County has 10, or 44% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 52% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Isanti County received?
Isanti County has received 7 major disaster declarations, representing 70% of all 10 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Isanti County filed?
Isanti County has 26 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $226.4K in payments, with an average of $8.7K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Isanti County?
No. In Isanti County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $9.5M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Isanti County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Isanti County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2020.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Isanti County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Isanti County, Minnesota has an overall risk score of 26.9 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Very Low, while community resilience comes in at Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $15.3M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Isanti County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Isanti County as of the latest release is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Low) and Tornado (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 1,241 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.

What this means for Isanti County

Against a Minnesota county mean of 18 declarations, Isanti County, MN records 10, or 44% fewer. PlainHazard classifies that historical total as high activity.

  • Major Disaster is the largest group (7 of 10) in a declaration history that remains below its state benchmark; frequency here is not a forecast. Minnesota overview
  • Nationally the county exceeds 10% of recorded county totals, but its own Minnesota benchmark is higher. The ranking keeps those two contexts separate. Most-disaster rankings
  • A short NFIP claims file cannot establish low flood exposure; the data guide explains the limits of each federal measure. Disaster-data guide

A below-average federal record is not a safety guarantee. Use National Weather Service alerts and local emergency-management notices for present conditions, not this historical comparison.

PlainHazard derives this profile from FEMA's Disaster Declarations Summaries and National Risk Index data. The declaration comparison covers 3,266 U.S. counties and county equivalents in this database, refreshed as of 2026-08-03. Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

All federal data sources used on this page
Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainHazard Editorial

Verify with FEMA → · Verify with FEMA NRI → · Verify with NOAA →

Every figure on PlainHazard is rendered directly from FEMA federal disaster data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or national statistics report, the data & editorial changelog, or report a data error.