FEMA Records
19
Below median
California · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Kings County, CA
19 FEMA disaster declarations (1969-2023), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Moderate. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 19
- FEMA declarations
- 14
- Major disasters
- 92
- NRI risk · Relatively Moderate
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Kings County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 19 declarations, more than 41% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 33% below the California county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 8%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 8%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Moderate
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 19
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 10
- 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.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 06031 · Kings County 19 declarations · rank 1758/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-MID · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 19
- MAJOR-MID 74%
- RANK-LOWER #1,758
- PHOTO-FINISH Bartow
- NRI-MID 92
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -33%
Nearest declaration peer: Bartow, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · California state profile
Kings County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Kings County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bartow · near 19
Bartow · near
19 declarations
- Kings · this county 19
Kings · this county
19 declarations
- Union · near 19
Union · near
19 declarations
- Warren · near 19
Warren · near
19 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Kings County carries 19 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1758 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Kings County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Kings County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Kings County
19 41st percentile higher than 41% 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
Kings County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Kings County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county sits among the highest-risk counties nationally on FEMA's National Risk Index, a composite score of 92.4/100 (Relatively Moderate). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Moderate (roughly $96.0M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Relatively High and community resilience Very Low, both critical modifiers of realized harm here. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Drought stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Very High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 77 modeled event-days per year here, based on 2,387 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 10 claims and $150.8K 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 California county averages 28.5 federal declaration records, while Kings County has 19. The gap is 33% 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.
60 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Kings County, CA · 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
19 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.9x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
8/25
19 declarations (0.7x state county average of 29)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
14 of 19 declarations are major disasters (74%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Kings County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Kings 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
74%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
92
Relatively Moderate
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Kings 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drought | Very High | 77 modeled event-days per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively High | 10 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 10 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.2 times per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 223 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | roughly once every 5 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | an average of 8.6 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 5.8 times per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | roughly once every 30 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 7
Severe Storm 4
Biological 2
Freezing 2
Hurricane 1
Earthquake 1
Coastal Storm 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Kings County's record, 37% 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 - 14 73.7%
of all 19 declarations
Emergency - 5 26.3%
of all 19 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 2 | |
| 1983 | 2 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 2 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 19 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 19 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4699 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-04-03 |
| 3592 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | EM | Flood | 2023-03-10 |
| 3591 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | EM | Flood | 2023-01-09 |
| 4482 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-22 |
| 3428 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4308 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2017-04-01 |
| 1952 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND DEBRIS AND MUD FLOWS | DR | Flood | 2011-01-26 |
| 1689 | SEVERE FREEZE | DR | Freezing | 2007-03-13 |
| 3248 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1267 | CA-CITRUS CROP DAMAGE 2/2/99 | DR | Freezing | 1999-02-09 |
| 1155 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUD AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-04 |
| 1046 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING LANDSLIDES, MUD FLOW | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-03-12 |
| 1044 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, MUD FLOWS | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-01-10 |
| 682 | COALINGA EARTHQUAKE | DR | Earthquake | 1983-05-05 |
| 677 | COASTAL STORMS, FLOODS, SLIDES & TORNADOES | DR | Coastal Storm | 1983-02-09 |
| 547 | COASTAL STORMS, MUDSLIDES & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-02-15 |
| 3023 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-01-20 |
| 270 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-08-15 |
| 253 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-01-26 |
Storm Events in California
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Kings County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Wind | 4,070 | 13 | 27 | $228.2M |
| Flood | 3,132 | 26 | 25 | $985.1M |
| Heavy Snow | 1,814 | 6 | 0 | $1.6M |
| Dense Fog | 1,605 | 52 | 148 | $2.8M |
| Drought | 1,421 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
10
Total Paid
$150.8K
Avg Per Claim
$15.1K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Moderate
Score: 92.4/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Moderate
$96.0M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Very High
Heat Wave Relatively High
Earthquake Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Tornado Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Avalanche Very Low
Cold Wave No Rating
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: Drought
Drought is the slowest of the modeled hazards and the least visible: it does its damage to agriculture, water supply and soil over seasons rather than hours, so it rarely produces the kind of single-day damage that drives a disaster declaration. FEMA scores it in event-days per year rather than discrete events for exactly that reason.
Worth noting for Kings County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought carries the highest modeled rating (Very 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
Kings County's closest FEMA peer: Lucas County, OH
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Kings County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Similar modeled NRI score
Kings County: NRI composite 92.4 (Relatively Moderate).
Similar Major-disaster share
Kings County: 14 of 19 of its declarations are Major.
Closest declaration profiles
Kings County shows 19 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
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 Kings County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Kings 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: 92.4 (Relatively Moderate).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 19. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 19 FEMA declarations, Kings 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 Kings County?
The most common disaster type in Kings County is Flood, with 7 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (4), Biological (2), Freezing (2).
How does Kings County's FEMA declaration record compare with the California average?
The typical California county has 28.5 FEMA declaration records; Kings County has 19, or 33% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 8% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Kings County received?
Kings County has received 14 major disaster declarations, representing 74% of all 19 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Kings County filed?
Kings County has 10 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $150.8K in payments, with an average of $15.1K per claim.
What was the worst year for disasters in Kings County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Kings County was 2023, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1969 to 2023.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Kings County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Kings County, California has an overall risk score of 92.4 out of 100 (Relatively Moderate). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively High, while community resilience comes in at Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Moderate, representing $96.0M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Kings County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Kings County as of the latest release is Drought (risk rating: Very High). Other significant hazards include Heat Wave (Relatively High) and Earthquake (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 77 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 2,387 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 Kings County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · California profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events