FEMA Records
13
Low volume
Georgia · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Marion County, GA
13 FEMA disaster declarations (1977-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Hurricane.
- 13
- FEMA declarations
- 6
- Major disasters
- 7
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Hurricane
- Top hazard
The verdict
Marion County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 13 declarations, more than 17% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 25% below the Georgia county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 7%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 7%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 13
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 5
- hurricane declarations, the most common hazard here
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 13197 · Marion County 13 declarations · rank 2625/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-LIGHT · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 13
- MAJOR-LIGHT 46%
- RANK-LOWER #2,625
- PHOTO-FINISH Clarke
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Hurricane
- VS-ST-BELOW -25%
Nearest declaration peer: Clarke, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Georgia state profile
Marion County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Marion County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bristol (city) · near 13
Bristol (city) · near
13 declarations
- Clarke · near 13
Clarke · near
13 declarations
- Douglas · near 13
Douglas · near
13 declarations
- Marion · this county 13
Marion · this county
13 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Marion County carries 13 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2625 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Marion County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Marion County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Marion County
13 17th percentile higher than 17% 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
Marion County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Marion County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $997.4K Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Drought 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 Marion County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 6.7/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $2.3M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Very High) and community resilience (Very Low). Among the 18 modeled hazards, Drought carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 59 modeled event-days per year here, based on 1,631 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
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.
Start with the state benchmark: a Georgia county averages 17.4 federal declaration records, while Marion County has 13. The gap is 25% 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.
48 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Marion County, GA · 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
9/30
13 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.6x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25
13 declarations (0.7x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share Moderate
12/25
6 of 13 declarations are major disasters (46%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Marion County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Marion 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
46%
Mixed major share
NRI risk score
7
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Marion 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 59 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 67 times per year |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 12 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,294 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 6.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 825 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 2.6 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 1.5 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 5
Biological 2
Severe Storm 2
Winter Storm 1
Tropical Storm 1
Tornado 1
Drought 1
What Hurricane declarations mean here
Hurricane is the most frequent declaration type on Marion County's federal record, 38% 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).
Emergency - 7 53.8%
of all 13 declarations
Major Disaster - 6 46.2%
of all 13 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 13 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 13 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3642 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 3616 | HURRICANE HELENE | EM | Tropical Storm | 2024-09-26 |
| 4501 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-29 |
| 3464 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4400 | HURRICANE MICHAEL | DR | Hurricane | 2018-10-14 |
| 3406 | HURRICANE MICHAEL | EM | Hurricane | 2018-10-10 |
| 4338 | HURRICANE IRMA | DR | Hurricane | 2017-09-15 |
| 3387 | HURRICANE IRMA | EM | Hurricane | 2017-09-08 |
| 4259 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-02-26 |
| 3218 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1033 | TORNADOES, FLOODING TORRENTIAL RAIN(TROP STORM ALBERTO) | DR | Tornado | 1994-07-07 |
| 857 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNAODES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-02-23 |
| 3044 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-07-20 |
Storm Events in Georgia
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Marion County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 9,617 | 15 | 75 | $65.4M |
| Drought | 1,363 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Hail | 1,257 | 0 | 0 | $61.8M |
| Flash Flood | 1,154 | 0 | 3 | $29.3M |
| Tropical Storm | 655 | 28 | 19 | $855.3M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 6.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$2.3M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Hurricane Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Hail Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Winter Weather 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: Drought
Drought is the slowest of the modeled hazards and the least visible: it does its damage to agriculture, water supply and soil over seasons rather than hours, so it rarely produces the kind of single-day damage that drives a disaster declaration. FEMA scores it in event-days per year rather than discrete events for exactly that reason.
Worth noting for Marion County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), while the county's declaration history is led by Hurricane. 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
Marion County's closest FEMA peer: Irion County, TX
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Marion County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Marion County shows 13 FEMA declarations, led by Hurricane.
Similar Major-disaster share
Marion County: 6 of 13 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Marion County: NRI composite 6.7 (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 Marion County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Marion 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: 6.7 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 13. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 13 FEMA declarations, Marion 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 Marion County?
The most common disaster type in Marion County is Hurricane, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Severe Storm (2), Winter Storm (1).
How does Marion County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Georgia average?
The typical Georgia county has 17.4 FEMA declaration records; Marion County has 13, or 25% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 37% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Marion County received?
Marion County has received 6 major disaster declarations, representing 46% of all 13 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Marion County?
No. In Marion County, Drought has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $997.4K. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Marion County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Marion County was 2017, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1977 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Marion County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Marion County, Georgia has an overall risk score of 6.7 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very High; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $2.3M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Marion County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Marion County is Drought (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Lightning (Relatively Moderate) and Hurricane (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 59 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 1,631 historical events on record. FEMA derives these ratings from historical event frequency, the assets exposed, and the community's vulnerability profile.
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.
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 Marion County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Georgia profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events