FEMA Records
27
High volume
Puerto Rico · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Lajas Municipio, PR
27 FEMA disaster declarations (1971-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of null. Most common hazard: Hurricane.
- 27
- FEMA declarations
- 16
- Major disasters
- Hurricane
- Top hazard
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 72079 · Lajas Municipio 27 declarations · rank 674/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-UNK · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 27
- MAJOR-MID 59%
- RANK-MID #674
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-UNK NRI n/a
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Hurricane
- VS-ST-BELOW -0%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, MO (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Puerto Rico state profile
Lajas Municipio in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among this county and nearest peers
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Coal · near 27
Coal · near
27 declarations
- Greene · near 27
Greene · near
27 declarations
- Lajas · this county 27
Lajas · this county
27 declarations
- Warren · near 27
Warren · near
27 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Lajas Municipio carries 27 FEMA declaration records, ranked 674 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How does Lajas Municipio compare?
Lajas Municipio vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
27 Top 22% higher than 78% 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
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Lajas Municipio is led by Hurricane (about $9.0M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Coastal Flooding carries the highest National Risk Index rating (null). 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 Lajas Municipio's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
Even the county's top-rated hazard, Coastal Flooding, only reaches on FEMA's scale, none of the 18 modeled hazards stand out here. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 4 years here.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 27 claims and $106.7K 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 Puerto Rico county averages 27.1 federal declaration records, while Lajas Municipio has 27. The gap is 0% 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.
62 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Lajas Municipio, PR · 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
20/30
27 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.3x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
27 declarations (1.0x state county average of 27)
Major Disaster Share High
15/25
16 of 27 declarations are major disasters (59%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Lajas Municipio
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Lajas Municipio
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
59%
Major-heavy
County FIPS
72079
PR state code
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Lajas Municipio?
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Coastal Flooding | roughly once every 4 years | |
| Earthquake | roughly once every 14 years | |
| Hail | roughly once every 38 years | |
| Hurricane | roughly once every 4 years | |
| Heat Wave | 0.1 modeled event-days per year | |
| Riverine Flooding | roughly once every 6 years | |
| Landslide | roughly once every 100 years | |
| Lightning | an average of 69 times per year | |
| Tornado | roughly once every 313 years | |
| Tsunami | roughly once every 18 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 10
Severe Storm 6
Flood 6
Biological 2
Earthquake 2
Drought 1
What Hurricane declarations mean here
Hurricane is the most frequent declaration type on Lajas Municipio's federal record, 37% of its declarations. Atlantic tropical systems run on a defined season, 1 June to 30 November, with most activity concentrated between August and October; Pacific and territorial basins run on their own calendars. A single named storm routinely produces one declaration number covering a long corridor of counties at once, well inland as well as on the coast, which is why an affected county's count can jump by several in one year without several separate events having occurred.
One practical distinction matters when reading these records: a tropical declaration usually bundles wind, storm surge and inland rainfall flooding under a single incident, but the insurance behind them is split. Wind damage falls to property insurers, while flood and surge damage is covered only under a separate National Flood Insurance Program policy. That is why a county can show heavy declaration activity and a comparatively small NFIP claims record, or the reverse.
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 - 16 59.3%
of all 27 declarations
Emergency - 11 40.7%
of all 27 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 2 | |
| 2022 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 6 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 2 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1988 | 1 | |
| 1986 | 1 | |
| 1979 | 1 | |
Show 3 earlier declaration years
| 1975 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1971 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 27 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 27 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3610 | TROPICAL STORM ERNESTO | EM | Severe Storm | 2024-08-13 |
| 4805 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2024-07-23 |
| 4671 | HURRICANE FIONA | DR | Hurricane | 2022-09-21 |
| 3583 | TROPICAL STORM FIONA | EM | Hurricane | 2022-09-18 |
| 3537 | TROPICAL STORM LAURA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-08-22 |
| 3532 | POTENTIAL TROPICAL CYCLONE NINE | EM | Hurricane | 2020-07-29 |
| 4493 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-27 |
| 3452 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4473 | EARTHQUAKES | DR | Earthquake | 2020-01-16 |
| 3426 | EARTHQUAKES | EM | Earthquake | 2020-01-07 |
| 3417 | TROPICAL STORM DORIAN | EM | Severe Storm | 2019-08-27 |
| 4339 | HURRICANE MARIA | DR | Hurricane | 2017-09-20 |
| 3391 | HURRICANE MARIA | EM | Hurricane | 2017-09-18 |
| 3326 | HURRICANE IRENE | EM | Hurricane | 2011-08-22 |
| 1798 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-10-01 |
| 1552 | TROPICAL STORM JEANNE AND RESULTING LANDSLIDES AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-09-17 |
| 1501 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUDSLIDES, AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-11-21 |
| 1372 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-05-16 |
| 3151 | HURRICANE LENNY | EM | Hurricane | 1999-11-17 |
| 1247 | HURRICANE GEORGES - 18 SEP 98 | DR | Hurricane | 1998-09-24 |
Show 7 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 931 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1992-01-22 |
| 805 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1987-12-17 |
| 746 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING & MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 1985-10-10 |
| 597 | HURRICANE DAVID | DR | Hurricane | 1979-09-02 |
| 483 | TROPICAL STORM ELIOISE | DR | Flood | 1975-09-19 |
| 3002 | IMPACT OF DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1974-08-29 |
| 296 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1970-10-12 |
Storm Events in Puerto Rico
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Lajas Municipio.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | 907 | 31 | 14 | $19.0B |
| Flood | 858 | 2 | 0 | $2.0M |
| Debris Flow | 297 | 0 | 0 | $3.8M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 194 | 1 | 3 | $1.7M |
| Excessive Heat | 184 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
27
Total Paid
$106.7K
Avg Per Claim
$4.0K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Score: N/A/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$15.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Data Unavailable
Community Resilience
Data Unavailable
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Coastal Flooding
Earthquake
Hail
Hurricane
Heat Wave
Riverine Flooding
Landslide
Lightning
Tornado
Tsunami
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: Coastal Flooding
Coastal Flooding is modeled separately from riverine flooding because its driver is different: surge, tide and wave action rather than a watershed draining. It is also the hazard whose baseline is moving, since the same storm rides on a higher starting sea level than it used to.
For Lajas Municipio the two measures on this page point the same way: Coastal Flooding is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard, and Hurricane declarations also lead its federal record. Where the model and the declaration history agree, the reading is comparatively straightforward, the hazard is both expected and repeatedly realised.
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
Lajas Municipio's closest FEMA peer: El Dorado County, CA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields for Lajas Municipio. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Lajas Municipio shows 27 FEMA declarations, led by Hurricane.
Similar Major-disaster share
Lajas Municipio: 16 of 27 of its declarations are Major.
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 Lajas Municipio - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Lajas Municipio: 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 declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 27. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 27 FEMA declarations, Lajas Municipio 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 Lajas Municipio?
The most common disaster type in Lajas Municipio is Hurricane, with 10 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (6), Flood (6), Biological (2).
How does Lajas Municipio's FEMA declaration record compare with the Puerto Rico average?
The typical Puerto Rico county has 27.1 FEMA declaration records; Lajas Municipio has 27, or 0% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 30% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Lajas Municipio received?
Lajas Municipio has received 16 major disaster declarations, representing 59% of all 27 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Lajas Municipio filed?
Lajas Municipio has 27 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $106.7K in payments, with an average of $4.0K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Lajas Municipio?
No. In Lajas Municipio, Coastal Flooding has the highest National Risk Index rating (null), while Hurricane leads Expected Annual Loss at about $9.0M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Lajas Municipio?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Lajas Municipio was 2020, with 6 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1971 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Lajas Municipio?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Lajas Municipio, Puerto Rico has an overall risk score of N/A out of 100 (null). The county's social vulnerability rating is Data Unavailable and community resilience is Data Unavailable. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $15.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Lajas Municipio?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Lajas Municipio is Coastal Flooding (risk rating: null). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (null) and Hail (null). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts coastal flooding here at roughly once every 4 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.
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.