FEMA Records
19
Below median
California · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Merced County, CA
19 FEMA disaster declarations (1969-2023), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively High. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 19
- FEMA declarations
- 14
- Major disasters
- 97
- NRI risk · Relatively High
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Merced County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 19 declarations, more than 41% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 33% below the California county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 3%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 3%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively High
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 19
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 499
- 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 06047 · Merced County 19 declarations · rank 1891/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-HIGH · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 19
- MAJOR-MID 74%
- RANK-LOWER #1,891
- PHOTO-FINISH Bartow
- NRI-HIGH 97
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -33%
Nearest declaration peer: Bartow, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · California state profile
Merced County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Merced County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bartow · near 19
Bartow · near
19 declarations
- Merced · this county 19
Merced · this county
19 declarations
- Union · near 19
Union · near
19 declarations
- Warren · near 19
Warren · near
19 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Merced County carries 19 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1891 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Merced County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Merced County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Merced County
19 41st percentile higher than 41% 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
Merced County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Merced County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 499 paid claims, totaling $14.5M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $29.1K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a California county averages 28.5 federal declaration records, while Merced County has 19. The gap is 33% 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 sits among the highest-risk counties nationally on FEMA's National Risk Index, a composite score of 96.9/100 (Relatively High). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively High (roughly $204.8M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Relatively High and community resilience Very Low, both critical modifiers of realized harm here. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Drought stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Very High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 74 modeled event-days per year here, based on 2,212 historical events on record.
58 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Merced County, CA · 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
14/30
19 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.9x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
8/25
19 declarations (0.7x state county average of 29)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
14 of 19 declarations are major disasters (74%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Merced County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Merced 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
97
Relatively High
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Merced 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 | Very High | 74 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively High | roughly once every 11 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively High | 10 modeled event-days per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively High | an average of 1.9 times per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 193 years |
| Lightning | Relatively High | an average of 6.6 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | an average of 15 times per year |
| Volcanic Activity | Very Low | roughly once every 5,000 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 5 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | roughly once every 26 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 6
Flood 5
Freezing 3
Biological 2
Hurricane 1
Coastal Storm 1
Drought 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Merced County's record, 32% 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 - 14 73.7%
of all 19 declarations
Emergency - 5 26.3%
of all 19 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 4 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1983 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 19 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 19 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4699 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-04-03 |
| 3592 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | EM | Flood | 2023-03-10 |
| 4683 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2023-01-14 |
| 3591 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | EM | Flood | 2023-01-09 |
| 4482 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-22 |
| 3428 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4308 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2017-04-01 |
| 4301 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-02-14 |
| 1689 | SEVERE FREEZE | DR | Freezing | 2007-03-13 |
| 1646 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2006-06-05 |
| 3248 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1267 | CA-CITRUS CROP DAMAGE 2/2/99 | DR | Freezing | 1999-02-09 |
| 1203 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-02-09 |
| 1155 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUD AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-04 |
| 1046 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING LANDSLIDES, MUD FLOW | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-03-12 |
| 894 | SEVERE FREEZE | DR | Freezing | 1991-02-11 |
| 677 | COASTAL STORMS, FLOODS, SLIDES & TORNADOES | DR | Coastal Storm | 1983-02-09 |
| 3023 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-01-20 |
| 253 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-01-26 |
Storm Events in California
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Merced County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Wind | 4,070 | 13 | 27 | $228.2M |
| Flood | 3,132 | 26 | 25 | $985.1M |
| Heavy Snow | 1,814 | 6 | 0 | $1.6M |
| Dense Fog | 1,605 | 52 | 148 | $2.8M |
| Drought | 1,421 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
499
Total Paid
$14.5M
Avg Per Claim
$29.1K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively High
Score: 96.9/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively High
$204.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Very High
Earthquake Relatively High
Heat Wave Relatively High
Riverine Flooding Relatively High
Wildfire Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively High
Hail Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Volcanic Activity Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Avalanche Very Low
Cold Wave No Rating
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 Merced County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought carries the highest modeled rating (Very High), while the county's declaration history is led by Severe Storm. 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
Merced County's closest FEMA peer: Montgomery County, PA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Merced County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Similar modeled NRI score
Merced County: NRI composite 96.9 (Relatively High).
Similar Major-disaster share
Merced County: 14 of 19 of its declarations are Major.
Closest declaration profiles
Merced County shows 19 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
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 Merced County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Merced 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: 96.9 (Relatively High).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 19. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Merced County's NFIP claims file (499 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 Merced County?
The most common disaster type in Merced County is Severe Storm, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (5), Freezing (3), Biological (2).
How does Merced County's FEMA declaration record compare with the California average?
The typical California county has 28.5 FEMA declaration records; Merced County has 19, or 33% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 8% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Merced County received?
Merced County has received 14 major disaster declarations, representing 74% of all 19 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Merced County filed?
Merced County has 499 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $14.5M in payments, with an average of $29.1K per claim.
What was the worst year for disasters in Merced County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Merced County was 2023, with 4 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1969 to 2023.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Merced County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Merced County, California has an overall risk score of 96.9 out of 100 (Relatively High). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively High; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively High, representing $204.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Merced County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Merced County is Drought (risk rating: Very High). Other significant hazards include Earthquake (Relatively High) and Heat Wave (Relatively High). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 74 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 2,212 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.
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 Merced County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · California profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events