FEMA Records
27
High volume
Kentucky · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Madison County, KY
27 FEMA disaster declarations (1972-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 27
- FEMA declarations
- 20
- Major disasters
- 75
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Madison County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 27 declarations, more than 78% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 4% below the Kentucky county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 25%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 25%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 27
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 138
- 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 21151 · Madison County 27 declarations · rank 656/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 27
- MAJOR-MID 74%
- RANK-MID #656
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW 75
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -4%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, MO (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kentucky state profile
Madison County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Madison County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Coal · near 27
Coal · near
27 declarations
- Greene · near 27
Greene · near
27 declarations
- Madison · this county 27
Madison · this county
27 declarations
- Warren · near 27
Warren · near
27 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Madison County carries 27 FEMA declaration records, ranked 656 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Madison County ranks in the national declaration registry
Madison County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Madison County
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 · 2026-08-25
Madison County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Madison County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $18.2M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Lightning carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High). 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 Madison County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 138 paid claims, totaling $2.9M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $21.2K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Kentucky county averages 28.1 federal declaration records, while Madison County has 27. The gap is 4% 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, 74.8/100, rated Relatively Low. Its Expected Annual Loss rating is Relatively Low (roughly $36.7M in annualized losses), and a Relatively Low social-vulnerability profile combined with Relatively High community resilience shapes how much of that raw exposure becomes realized harm. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Lightning stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 52 times per year here, based on 110,813 historical events on record.
71 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Madison County, KY · 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 28)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
20 of 27 declarations are major disasters (74%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Madison County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Madison 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
75
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Madison 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Relatively High | an average of 52 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively High | an average of 6.4 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively High | an average of 11 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 5 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 476 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.9 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 2.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,401 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 36 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 2.8 modeled event-days per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 11
Flood 5
Severe Ice Storm 3
Snowstorm 3
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Madison County's record, 41% 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 - 20 74.1%
of all 27 declarations
Emergency - 7 25.9%
of all 27 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 3 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 2 | |
| 2009 | 3 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
Show 5 earlier declaration years
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1989 | 1 | |
| 1979 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1972 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3633 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4864 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-04-24 |
| 3626 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-04-03 |
| 3624 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, AND LANDSLIDES | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-02-16 |
| 4702 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-04-10 |
| 4595 | SEVERE, STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2021-04-23 |
| 4592 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-03-31 |
| 4497 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-28 |
| 3469 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4428 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-04-17 |
| 4217 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2015-05-01 |
| 1925 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-07-23 |
| 1912 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUDSLIDES, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-05-11 |
| 1841 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODING AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-05-29 |
| 1818 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2009-02-05 |
| 3302 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2009-01-28 |
| 3231 | HURRICANE KATRINA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1523 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-06-10 |
| 1471 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUD AND ROCK SLIDES, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-06-03 |
| 1207 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-03-03 |
Show 7 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1089 | BLIZZARD OF 96 | DR | Snowstorm | 1996-01-13 |
| 1018 | SEVERE WEATHER, FREEZING RAIN, SLEET, SNW | DR | Snowstorm | 1994-03-16 |
| 3104 | SEVERE SNOWFALL & WINTER STORM | EM | Snowstorm | 1993-03-16 |
| 821 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1989-02-24 |
| 568 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-12-12 |
| 420 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
| 332 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1972-05-15 |
Storm Events in Kentucky
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Madison County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 6,702 | 9 | 56 | $55.2M |
| Flash Flood | 1,757 | 65 | 16 | $42.6M |
| Flood | 1,646 | 31 | 6 | $37.1M |
| Hail | 1,534 | 1 | 0 | $4.7M |
| Winter Weather | 1,079 | 14 | 54 | $655.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
138
Total Paid
$2.9M
Avg Per Claim
$21.2K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 74.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$36.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Lightning Relatively High
Strong Wind Relatively High
Winter Weather Relatively High
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Avalanche Very Low
Drought 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: Lightning
Lightning is modeled as a high-frequency, low-per-event hazard: strike counts are large, but each strike affects a very small area. Its aggregate cost accumulates through structure fires, electrical and electronic damage, and it is one of the few hazards whose risk is essentially continuous through the season rather than episodic.
For Madison County the two measures on this page point the same way: Lightning is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively High), and Severe Storm 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
Madison County's closest FEMA peer: Bucks County, PA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Madison County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Madison County shows 27 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Madison County: 20 of 27 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Madison County: NRI composite 74.8 (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 Madison County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Madison 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: 74.8 (Relatively Low).
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
Understanding disaster data
Madison County's NFIP claims file (138 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 Madison County?
The most common disaster type in Madison County is Severe Storm, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (5), Severe Ice Storm (3), Snowstorm (3).
How does Madison County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kentucky average?
The typical Kentucky county has 28.1 FEMA declaration records; Madison County has 27, or 4% 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 Madison County received?
Madison County has received 20 major disaster declarations, representing 74% of all 27 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Madison County filed?
Madison County has 138 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $2.9M in payments, with an average of $21.2K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Madison County?
No. In Madison County, Lightning has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $18.2M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Madison County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Madison County was 2009, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1972 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Madison County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Madison County, Kentucky has an overall risk score of 74.8 out of 100 (Relatively Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Low, while community resilience comes in at Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $36.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Madison County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Madison County is Lightning (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Strong Wind (Relatively High) and Winter Weather (Relatively High). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts lightning here at an average of 52 times per year, drawn from 110,813 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 Madison County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kentucky profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events