FEMA Records
20
Above median
Texas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Kerr County, TX
20 FEMA disaster declarations (1978-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 20
- FEMA declarations
- 11
- Major disasters
- 77
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Kerr County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 20 declarations, more than 46% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 4% below the Texas county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 23%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 23%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 20
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 318
- NFIP flood insurance claims filed
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Fire Management Assistance (FM) records, which are not presidential disaster declarations, alongside Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 48265 · Kerr County 20 declarations · rank 1627/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 20
- MAJOR-MID 55%
- RANK-LOWER #1,627
- PHOTO-FINISH Monona
- NRI-LOW 77
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -4%
Nearest declaration peer: Monona, IA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Texas state profile
Kerr County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Kerr County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Cleveland · near 20
Cleveland · near
20 declarations
- Kerr · this county 20
Kerr · this county
20 declarations
- Monona · near 20
Monona · near
20 declarations
- Tallapoosa · near 20
Tallapoosa · near
20 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Kerr County carries 20 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1627 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Kerr County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Kerr County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Kerr County
20 46th percentile higher than 46% 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
Kerr County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Kerr County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $18.0M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Lightning carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively 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 Kerr County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 318 paid claims, totaling $19.7M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $61.8K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Texas county averages 20.9 federal declaration records, while Kerr County has 20. The gap is 4% 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 sits among the highest-risk counties nationally on FEMA's National Risk Index, a composite score of 77.2/100 (Relatively Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Low (roughly $25.3M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Very High and community resilience Relatively Low, both critical modifiers of realized harm here. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Lightning stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 45 times per year here, based on 94,350 historical events on record.
60 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Kerr 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) Moderate
14/30
20 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.0x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
20 declarations (1.0x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share High
14/25
11 of 20 declarations are major disasters (55%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Kerr County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Kerr 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
55%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
77
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Kerr 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 | Relatively High | an average of 45 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively High | an average of 4 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | an average of 2.8 times per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 690 years |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 2.8 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 4 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 138 modeled event-days per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 3.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 49 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 4,651 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 22 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 6
Fire 4
Hurricane 3
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Severe Storm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Kerr County's record, 30% 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 - 11 55.0%
of all 20 declarations
Emergency - 8 40.0%
of all 20 declarations
Fire Management - 1 5.0%
of all 20 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
Show 1 earlier declaration years
| 1978 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 20 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 20 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3649 | FLOODING | EM | Flood | 2026-07-18 |
| 4879 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2025-07-06 |
| 4705 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2023-04-21 |
| 4586 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-19 |
| 3554 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-14 |
| 4485 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-25 |
| 3458 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 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 |
| 1425 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2002-07-04 |
| 2330 | TX - SHEPPARD REESE FIRE - 09/04/00 | FM | Fire | 2000-09-05 |
| 3142 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARDS | EM | Fire | 1999-09-01 |
| 1239 | TROPICAL STORM CHARLEY | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-08-26 |
| 1179 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1997-07-07 |
| 3113 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Drought | 1993-09-10 |
| 930 | SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS | DR | Flood | 1991-12-26 |
| 561 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-08-03 |
Storm Events in Texas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Kerr 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
318
Total Paid
$19.7M
Avg Per Claim
$61.8K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 77.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$25.3M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Lightning Relatively High
Winter Weather Relatively High
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Landslide Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Hurricane Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm 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 Kerr County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Lightning carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively High), 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
Kerr County's closest FEMA peer: Saratoga County, NY
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Kerr County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Kerr County shows 20 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Kerr County: 11 of 20 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Kerr County: NRI composite 77.2 (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 Kerr County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Kerr 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: 77.2 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 20. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Kerr County's NFIP claims file (318 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 Kerr County?
The most common disaster type in Kerr County is Flood, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Fire (4), Hurricane (3), Severe Ice Storm (2).
How does Kerr County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Texas average?
The typical Texas county has 20.9 FEMA declaration records; Kerr County has 20, or 4% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 3% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Kerr County received?
Kerr County has received 11 major disaster declarations, representing 55% of all 20 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Kerr County filed?
Kerr County has 318 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $19.7M in payments, with an average of $61.8K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Kerr County?
No. In Kerr County, Lightning has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $18.0M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Kerr County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Kerr County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1978 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Kerr County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Kerr County, Texas has an overall risk score of 77.2 out of 100 (Relatively Low). Social vulnerability here rates Very High, while community resilience comes in at Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $25.3M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Kerr County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Kerr County is Lightning (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Winter Weather (Relatively High) and Riverine Flooding (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts lightning here at an average of 45 times per year, drawn from 94,350 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 Kerr County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Texas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events