FEMA Records
21
Above median
South Dakota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Jerauld County, SD
21 FEMA disaster declarations (1976-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 21
- FEMA declarations
- 18
- Major disasters
- 10
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Jerauld 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 10%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 10%
- 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
- flood declarations, the most common hazard here
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 46073 · Jerauld County 21 declarations · rank 1448/3,266
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 #1,448
- 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
Jerauld County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among this county and nearest peers
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Atascosa · near 21
Atascosa · near
21 declarations
- Jerauld · this county 21
Jerauld · 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 Jerauld County carries 21 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1448 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How does Jerauld County compare?
Jerauld County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
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 · 2026-08-03
Jerauld County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Jerauld County is led by Cold Wave (about $1.9M 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 Jerauld 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 9.5/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $4.3M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively Moderate) and community resilience (Relatively High). 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 634 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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Jerauld 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
Jerauld 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 Jerauld County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Jerauld 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
10
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Jerauld 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 634 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 8.3 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 16 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 4.4 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 16 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 14 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 2.9 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,494 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 5.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 35 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 8
Severe Storm 7
Biological 2
Snowstorm 2
Coastal Storm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Jerauld County's record, 38% 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 | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 3 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 2 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1986 | 1 | |
Show 1 earlier declaration years
| 1976 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 4186 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2014-07-28 |
| 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 |
| 1702 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-05-22 |
| 1620 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-12-20 |
| 3234 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Coastal Storm | 2005-09-10 |
| 1375 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND ICE JAMS | DR | Flood | 2001-05-17 |
| 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 |
| 1075 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Snowstorm | 1996-01-05 |
| 1052 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1995-05-26 |
| 1045 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Snowstorm | 1995-03-14 |
| 999 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-07-19 |
| 764 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1986-05-03 |
Show 1 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3015 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-06-17 |
Storm Events in South Dakota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Jerauld 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
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 9.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$4.3M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Heat Wave 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 Jerauld 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
Jerauld County's closest FEMA peer: Kingman County, KS
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Jerauld County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Jerauld County shows 21 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Jerauld County: 18 of 21 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Jerauld County: NRI composite 9.5 (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 Jerauld County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Jerauld 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: 9.5 (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, Jerauld 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 Jerauld County?
The most common disaster type in Jerauld County is Flood, with 8 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (7), Biological (2), Snowstorm (2).
How does Jerauld County's FEMA declaration record compare with the South Dakota average?
FEMA lists 21 declaration records for Jerauld 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 Jerauld County received?
Jerauld County has received 18 major disaster declarations, representing 86% of all 21 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Jerauld County?
No. In Jerauld County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Cold Wave leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.9M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Jerauld County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Jerauld County was 2010, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1976 to 2020.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Jerauld County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Jerauld County, South Dakota has an overall risk score of 9.5 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Moderate; on community resilience, Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $4.3M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Jerauld County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Jerauld County as of the latest release is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Cold Wave (Relatively Moderate) and Drought (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 634 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.
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.
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
- FEMA OpenFEMA, Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 - all federally-declared disasters for this county. fema.gov/openfema/disaster-declarations
- FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) - per-county per-hazard risk ratings and expected annual loss. hazards.fema.gov/nri
- NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database - state-level storm/severe-weather event records, 2015-2025. ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents
Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainHazard
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.