FEMA Records
26
High volume
North Dakota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Kidder County, ND
26 FEMA disaster declarations (1976-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 26
- FEMA declarations
- 23
- Major disasters
- 3
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Kidder County. Its 26 FEMA declarations are 0% above the North Dakota county mean and exceed the count for 75% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 3%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 3%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 26
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 12
- severe storm 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 38043 · Kidder County 26 declarations · rank 790/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 26
- MAJOR-HEAVY 88%
- RANK-MID #790
- PHOTO-FINISH Hunterdon
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +0%
Nearest declaration peer: Hunterdon, NJ (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · North Dakota state profile
Kidder County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Kidder County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Hunterdon · near 26
Hunterdon · near
26 declarations
- Kidder · this county 26
Kidder · this county
26 declarations
- Pierce · near 26
Pierce · near
26 declarations
- San Sebastián · near 26
San Sebastián · near
26 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Kidder County carries 26 FEMA declaration records, ranked 790 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Kidder County ranks in the national declaration registry
Kidder County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Kidder County
26 Top 25% higher than 75% 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
Kidder County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Kidder County is led by Cold Wave (about $1.4M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Winter Weather 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 Kidder County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county sits at the very bottom of FEMA's National Risk Index nationally, a composite score of 3.1/100 (rated Very Low). Projected losses are minimal, Expected Annual Loss reads Very Low (roughly $3.4M in annualized losses), and the county's exposure is shaped by a Very Low social-vulnerability profile and Relatively Low community resilience. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Winter Weather, 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 an average of 21 times per year here, based on 403 historical events on record.
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. Kidder County's 26 federal records stand 0% above the North Dakota county mean of 25.9. 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.
69 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Kidder County, ND · 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
19/30
26 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.3x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
13/25
26 declarations (1.0x state county average of 26)
Major Disaster Share Very High
22/25
23 of 26 declarations are major disasters (88%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Kidder County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Kidder 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
88%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
3
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Kidder 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 21 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 2.4 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 18 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 2,843 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 1.4 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 13 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 1.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 5 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 30 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 9,259 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 12
Flood 9
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Coastal Storm 1
Drought 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Kidder County's record, 46% 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 - 23 88.5%
of all 26 declarations
Emergency - 3 11.5%
of all 26 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 4 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
Show 6 earlier declaration years
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1979 | 1 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 26 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 26 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4895 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-10-22 |
| 4888 | SEVERE STORM, TORNADOES, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-09-11 |
| 4686 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, SNOWSTORM, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Snowstorm | 2023-02-05 |
| 4660 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-07-13 |
| 4613 | SEVERE STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2021-09-01 |
| 4553 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2020-07-09 |
| 4509 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-01 |
| 3477 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4475 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2020-01-21 |
| 4128 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-07-12 |
| 1981 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2011-05-10 |
| 1907 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2010-04-30 |
| 1829 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-03-24 |
| 3247 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Coastal Storm | 2005-09-13 |
| 1597 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND GROUND SATURATION | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-07-22 |
| 1376 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, & GROUND SATURATION | DR | Flood | 2001-05-28 |
| 1334 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING AND GROUND SATURATION | DR | Severe Storm | 2000-06-27 |
| 1279 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, SNOW, ICE, GROUND SATURATION, LANSLIDES, MUDSLIDES, AND TOR | DR | Flood | 1999-06-08 |
| 1174 | SEVERE FLOODING,SEVERE WINTER STORMS, SNOWMELT, SPRING RAINS | DR | Flood | 1997-04-07 |
| 1157 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND BLIZZARD CONDITIONS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-12 |
Show 6 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1118 | SEVERE STORMS,FLOODING, & ICE JAMS | DR | Severe Storm | 1996-06-05 |
| 1050 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND GROUND SATURATION | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-05-16 |
| 1032 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-07-01 |
| 1001 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-26 |
| 581 | SEVERE STORMS, SNOWMELT & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1979-04-26 |
| 3016 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-07-21 |
Storm Events in North Dakota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Kidder County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 2,705 | 0 | 2 | $116.1M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 2,459 | 2 | 10 | $67.0M |
| High Wind | 1,184 | 1 | 1 | $2.9M |
| Heavy Snow | 925 | 0 | 3 | $650.0K |
| Blizzard | 905 | 2 | 2 | $60.0M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 3.1/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$3.4M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Drought Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Riverine Flooding 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: Winter Weather
Winter Weather in the model means the accumulation of snow and cold that disrupts rather than destroys: road closures, roof loads, burst pipes and lost heating. Its costs land heavily on transport and on households least able to absorb an interruption.
Worth noting for Kidder County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Winter Weather 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
Kidder County's closest FEMA peer: Turner County, SD
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Kidder County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Kidder County shows 26 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Kidder County: 23 of 26 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Kidder County: NRI composite 3.1 (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 Kidder County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Kidder 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: 3.1 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 26. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 26 FEMA declarations, Kidder 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 Kidder County?
The most common disaster type in Kidder County is Severe Storm, with 12 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (9), Biological (2), Snowstorm (1).
How does Kidder County's FEMA declaration record compare with the North Dakota average?
FEMA lists 26 declaration records for Kidder County. That is 0% above the North Dakota county mean of 25.9. Its count is also 25% 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 Kidder County received?
Kidder County has received 23 major disaster declarations, representing 88% of all 26 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Kidder County?
No. In Kidder County, Winter Weather has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Cold Wave leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.4M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Kidder County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Kidder County was 2020, with 4 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1976 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Kidder County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Kidder County, North Dakota has an overall risk score of 3.1 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very Low and community resilience is Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $3.4M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Kidder County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Kidder County is Winter Weather (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Low) and Cold Wave (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts winter weather here at an average of 21 times per year, drawn from 403 historical events on record. 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 Kidder County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · North Dakota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events