FEMA Records
17
Below median
Indiana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Knox County, IN
17 FEMA disaster declarations (1979-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 17
- FEMA declarations
- 13
- Major disasters
- 55
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Knox County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 17 declarations, more than 32% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 1% below the Indiana county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 45%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 45%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 17
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 81
- 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 18083 · Knox County 17 declarations · rank 2134/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 17
- MAJOR-MID 76%
- RANK-LOWER #2,134
- PHOTO-FINISH Curry
- NRI-LOW 55
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -1%
Nearest declaration peer: Curry, OR (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Indiana state profile
Knox County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Knox County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Curry · near 17
Curry · near
17 declarations
- Knox · this county 17
Knox · this county
17 declarations
- Murray · near 17
Murray · near
17 declarations
- Washington · near 17
Washington · near
17 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Knox County carries 17 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2134 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Knox County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Knox County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Knox County
17 32nd percentile higher than 32% 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
Knox County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Knox County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $7.5M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Earthquake carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate). 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 Knox County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 81 paid claims, totaling $1.0M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $12.5K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Indiana county averages 17.1 federal declaration records, while Knox County has 17. The gap is 1% 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 carries a high composite score on FEMA's National Risk Index, 55.3/100, rated Relatively Low. Its Expected Annual Loss rating is Relatively Low (roughly $18.8M in annualized losses), and a Relatively Low social-vulnerability profile combined with Very High community resilience shapes how much of that raw exposure becomes realized harm. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Earthquake carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 157 years here.
58 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Knox County, IN · 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
12/30
17 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
17 declarations (1.0x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
13 of 17 declarations are major disasters (76%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Knox County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Knox 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
76%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
55
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Knox 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Earthquake | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 157 years |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 2.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 7.3 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 52 times per year |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 6.2 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 5.2 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.2 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 156 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 13,051 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 9
Flood 3
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Knox County's record, 53% 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 - 13 76.5%
of all 17 declarations
Emergency - 4 23.5%
of all 17 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 2002 | 2 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 2 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1979 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 17 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 17 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3641 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4515 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-03 |
| 3456 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1997 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-06-23 |
| 1795 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-09-23 |
| 1766 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-06-08 |
| 3238 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1573 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-01-21 |
| 3197 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2005-01-11 |
| 1433 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-09-25 |
| 1418 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2002-06-13 |
| 1234 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-07-22 |
| 1125 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1996-07-03 |
| 1109 | BLIZZARD OF 96 | DR | Flood | 1996-04-02 |
| 891 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1991-01-05 |
| 869 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-06-04 |
| 596 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1979-07-31 |
Storm Events in Indiana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Knox County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,886 | 16 | 73 | $57.6M |
| Hail | 1,643 | 0 | 0 | $1.7M |
| Winter Weather | 1,166 | 32 | 80 | $2.5M |
| Flood | 850 | 13 | 3 | $16.0M |
| Flash Flood | 648 | 14 | 5 | $97.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
81
Total Paid
$1.0M
Avg Per Claim
$12.5K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 55.3/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$18.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Earthquake Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Landslide Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Low
Hurricane Very Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Wildfire 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: Earthquake
Earthquake is the model's clearest example of a hazard with no season and no warning. Its expected loss is driven less by how often shaking occurs than by how much of the building stock predates modern seismic codes, so exposure can be high in places where nothing has happened for a long time.
Worth noting for Knox County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Earthquake carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), 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
Knox County's closest FEMA peer: St. Louis County, MN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Knox County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Knox County shows 17 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Knox County: 13 of 17 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Knox County: NRI composite 55.3 (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 Knox County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Knox 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: 55.3 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 17. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Knox County's NFIP claims file (81 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 Knox County?
The most common disaster type in Knox County is Severe Storm, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (3), Biological (2), Winter Storm (1).
How does Knox County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Indiana average?
The typical Indiana county has 17.1 FEMA declaration records; Knox County has 17, or 1% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 18% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Knox County received?
Knox County has received 13 major disaster declarations, representing 76% of all 17 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Knox County filed?
Knox County has 81 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $1.0M in payments, with an average of $12.5K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Knox County?
No. In Knox County, Earthquake has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $7.5M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Knox County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Knox County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1979 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Knox County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Knox County, Indiana has an overall risk score of 55.3 out of 100 (Relatively Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Low, while community resilience comes in at Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $18.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Knox County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Knox County as of the latest release is Earthquake (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Winter Weather (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts earthquake here at roughly once every 157 years. 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 Knox County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Indiana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events