FEMA Records
15
Below median
American Samoa · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
15 FEMA disaster declarations (1966-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of null. Most common hazard: Hurricane.
Manu'a District vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
15 23rd percentile higher than 23% 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
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Manu'a District is led by Tsunami (about $1.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), 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.
The FEMA register is busy by both local and national comparisons. It contains 15 entries for Manu'a District, including 13 Major Disaster records, 0% above the American Samoa county mean. Across the 54-year span, that works out to 0.3 declarations a year. Hurricane leads the file with 5 entries. Declaration type records the federal action taken, not every assistance program approved.
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 3 years here.
No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Manu'a District's 15 federal records stand 0% above the American Samoa county mean of 15.0. 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.
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Manu'a District, AS · 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
15 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.7x national county average)
15 declarations (1.0x state county average of 15)
13 of 15 declarations are major disasters (87%)
7 different disaster types declared in Manu'a District
Activity Band
High
vs. American Samoa Avg
+0%
State avg: 15.0
vs. National Avg
-28%
National avg: 20.7
Avg Per Year
0.3
Over 54 years
Each axis: NRI risk rating (Very Low-Very High) on a 0-100 scale. Rounder = broad exposure; spiky = one or two hazards dominate.
FEMA Records
15
Below median
Major Disaster share
87%
Mostly major
County FIPS
60020
AS state code
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
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. These modeled frequencies are not forecasts.
| Hazard | NRI Risk Rating | Recurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Coastal Flooding | roughly once every 3 years | |
| Earthquake | roughly once every 198 years | |
| Hurricane | roughly once every 25 years | |
| Riverine Flooding | roughly once every 2 years | |
| Tsunami | roughly once every 3 years | |
| Volcanic Activity | roughly once every 5,000 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Hurricane is the most frequent declaration type on Manu'a District's federal record, 33% 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.
FEMA categorizes declarations as Major Disasters (DR), Emergencies (EM), or Fire Management Assistance (FM).
of all 15 declarations
of all 15 declarations
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2018 | 2 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1987 | 1 | |
| 1981 | 1 | |
| 1980 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1966 | 1 | |
How the 15 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 15 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4537 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-17 |
| 3465 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4357 | TROPICAL STORM GITA | DR | Hurricane | 2018-03-02 |
| 3397 | TROPICAL STORM GITA | EM | Hurricane | 2018-02-11 |
| 4192 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2014-09-10 |
| 1859 | EARTHQUAKE,TSUNAMI, AND FLOODING | DR | Earthquake | 2009-09-29 |
| 1582 | TC OLAF, INCLUD. HIGH WINDS AND SURF AND HEAVY RAINFALL | DR | Typhoon | 2005-02-18 |
| 1506 | HIGH WINDS, HIGH SURF, AND HEAVY RAINFALL ASSOCIATED WITH TROPCIAL CYCLONE HETA | DR | Typhoon | 2004-01-13 |
| 927 | HURRICANE VAL | DR | Hurricane | 1991-12-13 |
| 855 | HURRICANE OFA | DR | Hurricane | 1990-02-09 |
| 785 | HURRICANE TUSI | DR | Hurricane | 1987-01-24 |
| 637 | TYPHOON ESAU | DR | Typhoon | 1981-03-24 |
| 610 | FLOODING, MUDSLIDES & LANDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 1979-11-09 |
| 449 | DROUGHT | DR | Drought | 1974-09-30 |
| 213 | TYPHOON & HIGH TIDES | DR | Typhoon | 1966-02-10 |
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Manu'a District.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flash Flood | 84 | 1 | 3 | $13.6M |
| Heavy Rain | 62 | 0 | 0 | $1.8M |
| High Surf | 41 | 10 | 2 | $285.0K |
| High Wind | 27 | 0 | 0 | $1.1M |
| Strong Wind | 26 | 0 | 0 | $138.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
Overall Risk
Score: N/A/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$2.3M/year
Social Vulnerability
Data Unavailable
Community Resilience
Data Unavailable
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Ratings reflect relative scores among all US counties. Data: hazards.fema.gov/nri
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 Manu'a District 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
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields for Manu'a District. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Manu'a District shows 15 FEMA declarations, led by Hurricane.
Manu'a District: 13 of 15 of its declarations are Major.
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 Manu'a District - capture-dated entries only.
Most disaster-prone counties
With 15 FEMA declarations, Manu'a District sits in the high-volume declaration band - see how that count ranks against other U.S. counties.
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.
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.
What this means for Manu'a District
Manu'a District, AS has 15 federal declaration records, 0% more than the American Samoa county mean of 15; its history sits in PlainHazard's high activity band.
An above-average declaration count records past federal responses; it does not predict the next event. Current warnings come from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials.
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.
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.