FEMA Records
33
Very high volume
Mississippi · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Lawrence County, MS
33 FEMA disaster declarations (1969-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Hurricane.
- 33
- FEMA declarations
- 22
- Major disasters
- 25
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Hurricane
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Lawrence County. Its 33 FEMA declarations are 27% above the Mississippi county mean and exceed the count for 91% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 25%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 25%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 33
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 43
- 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 28077 · Lawrence County 33 declarations · rank 296/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-UPPER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 33
- MAJOR-MID 67%
- RANK-UPPER #296
- PHOTO-FINISH Nelson
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Hurricane
- VS-ST-ABOVE +27%
Nearest declaration peer: Nelson, ND (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Mississippi state profile
Lawrence County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Lawrence County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Garvin · near 33
Garvin · near
33 declarations
- Lawrence · this county 33
Lawrence · this county
33 declarations
- Monterey · near 33
Monterey · near
33 declarations
- Nelson · near 33
Nelson · near
33 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Lawrence County carries 33 FEMA declaration records, ranked 296 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Lawrence County ranks in the national declaration registry
Lawrence County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Lawrence County
33 Top 9% higher than 91% 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
Lawrence County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Lawrence County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $2.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Low), while Hurricane 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 Lawrence County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 25.0/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.5M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively High social-vulnerability score and Very Low community-resilience score. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Hurricane, 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 roughly once every 8 years here, based on 31 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 43 claims and $671.9K 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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Lawrence County's 33 federal records stand 27% above the Mississippi 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.
77 /100
Historical Activity Index
Very High historical activity
Lawrence County, MS · 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) Very High
24/30
33 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.6x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
16/25
33 declarations (1.3x state county average of 26)
Major Disaster Share High
17/25
22 of 33 declarations are major disasters (67%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Lawrence County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Lawrence 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
67%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
25
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Lawrence 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 406 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 14 modeled event-days per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 11 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 787 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 77 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 1.7 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 13
Severe Storm 10
Flood 3
Winter Storm 2
Biological 2
Severe Ice Storm 1
Tornado 1
Snowstorm 1
What Hurricane declarations mean here
Hurricane is the most frequent declaration type on Lawrence County's federal record, 39% 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 - 22 66.7%
of all 33 declarations
Emergency - 11 33.3%
of all 33 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 3 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 6 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2012 | 2 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1983 | 1 | |
Show 7 earlier declaration years
| 1979 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
| 1972 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 33 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 33 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4922 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2026-06-30 |
| 4899 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2026-02-06 |
| 3640 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4727 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES. | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-08-12 |
| 4626 | HURRICANE IDA | DR | Hurricane | 2021-10-22 |
| 3569 | HURRICANE IDA | EM | Hurricane | 2021-08-28 |
| 4598 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-05-04 |
| 3548 | HURRICANE DELTA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-10-08 |
| 3544 | HURRICANE SALLY | EM | Hurricane | 2020-09-14 |
| 3539 | HURRICANE MARCO AND TROPICAL STORM LAURA | EM | Hurricane | 2020-08-23 |
| 4551 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2020-07-09 |
| 4536 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2020-04-16 |
| 4528 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-05 |
| 3474 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4268 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2016-03-25 |
| 4081 | HURRICANE ISAAC | DR | Hurricane | 2012-08-29 |
| 3348 | TROPICAL STORM ISAAC | EM | Hurricane | 2012-08-28 |
| 1837 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-05-12 |
| 1794 | HURRICANE GUSTAV | DR | Hurricane | 2008-09-22 |
| 3291 | HURRICANE GUSTAV | EM | Hurricane | 2008-08-30 |
Show 13 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1604 | HURRICANE KATRINA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-08-29 |
| 1550 | HURRICANE IVAN | DR | Hurricane | 2004-09-15 |
| 1459 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODS | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-04-24 |
| 3132 | HURRICANE GEORGES | EM | Hurricane | 1998-09-28 |
| 859 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-02-28 |
| 678 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING & TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 1983-04-16 |
| 577 | STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODS | DR | Severe Storm | 1979-04-16 |
| 3063 | TORNADOES | EM | Tornado | 1978-04-24 |
| 3032 | DROUGHT & FREEZING | EM | Snowstorm | 1977-02-22 |
| 430 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-04-18 |
| 368 | HEAVY RAINS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1973-03-27 |
| 318 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1972-01-19 |
| 271 | HURRICANE CAMILLE | DR | Hurricane | 1969-08-18 |
Storm Events in Mississippi
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Lawrence County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 5,557 | 17 | 60 | $93.9M |
| Flash Flood | 1,551 | 6 | 9 | $83.6M |
| Hail | 1,411 | 0 | 0 | $90.1M |
| Heat | 1,340 | 3 | 0 | $0 |
| Tornado | 1,097 | 68 | 610 | $562.0M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
43
Total Paid
$671.9K
Avg Per Claim
$15.6K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 25.0/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.5M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hurricane Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Cold Wave 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: Hurricane
Hurricane exposure in the model bundles the three ways a tropical system does harm, which arrive on different timescales and are insured differently: wind, storm surge on the coast, and rainfall flooding that can reach far inland well after landfall.
For Lawrence County the two measures on this page point the same way: Hurricane is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively Low), 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
Lawrence County's closest FEMA peer: Sullivan County, NH
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Lawrence County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Lawrence County shows 33 FEMA declarations, led by Hurricane.
Similar Major-disaster share
Lawrence County: 22 of 33 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Lawrence County: NRI composite 25.0 (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 Lawrence County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Lawrence 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: 25.0 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 33. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 33 FEMA declarations, Lawrence 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 Lawrence County?
The most common disaster type in Lawrence County is Hurricane, with 13 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (10), Flood (3), Winter Storm (2).
How does Lawrence County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Mississippi average?
FEMA lists 33 declaration records for Lawrence County. That is 27% above the Mississippi county mean of 25.9. Its count is also 59% 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 Lawrence County received?
Lawrence County has received 22 major disaster declarations, representing 67% of all 33 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Lawrence County filed?
Lawrence County has 43 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $671.9K in payments, with an average of $15.6K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Lawrence County?
No. In Lawrence County, Hurricane has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $2.6M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Lawrence County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Lawrence County was 2020, with 6 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1969 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Lawrence County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Lawrence County, Mississippi has an overall risk score of 25.0 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively High and community resilience is Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.5M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Lawrence County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Lawrence County is Hurricane (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Low) and Tornado (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hurricane here at roughly once every 8 years, drawn from 31 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.
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 Lawrence County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Mississippi profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events