FEMA Records
27
High volume
Kansas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Morris County, KS
27 FEMA disaster declarations (1969-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 27
- FEMA declarations
- 23
- Major disasters
- 27
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Morris County. Its 27 FEMA declarations are 50% above the Kansas county mean and exceed the count for 78% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 27%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 27%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 27
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 20
- severe storm 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 20127 · Morris County 27 declarations · rank 685/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-HIGH
- DECL-HEAVY 27
- MAJOR-HEAVY 85%
- RANK-MID #685
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-HIGH +50%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, MO (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kansas state profile
Morris County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Morris 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
- Morris · this county 27
Morris · this county
27 declarations
- Warren · near 27
Warren · near
27 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Morris County carries 27 FEMA declaration records, ranked 685 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Morris County ranks in the national declaration registry
Morris County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Morris 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
Morris County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Morris County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $2.4M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Wildfire 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 Morris County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 27.4/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.7M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively High social-vulnerability score and Relatively High community-resilience score. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Wildfire, 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 434 years here.
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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Morris County's 27 federal records stand 50% above the Kansas county mean of 18.0. 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.
75 /100
Historical Activity Index
Very High historical activity
Morris County, KS · 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 Very High
19/25
27 declarations (1.5x state county average of 18)
Major Disaster Share Very High
21/25
23 of 27 declarations are major disasters (85%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Morris County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Morris 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
85%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
27
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Morris 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 434 years |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Moderate | 13 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 8.6 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 12 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 8 years |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 28 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 6.2 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 50 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.1 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 2.4 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,297 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 20
Biological 2
Flood 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Morris County's record, 74% 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 - 23 85.2%
of all 27 declarations
Emergency - 4 14.8%
of all 27 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 2 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2024 | 3 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 2 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 2 | |
| 2009 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Show 2 earlier declaration years
| 1973 | 2 | |
| 1969 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4926 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2026-06-30 |
| 4897 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-12-19 |
| 4891 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-09-11 |
| 4811 | SEVERE STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-08-20 |
| 4800 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-07-15 |
| 4774 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Winter Storm | 2024-04-28 |
| 4640 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-02-17 |
| 4504 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-29 |
| 3481 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4449 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, FLOODING,LANDSLIDES,AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-06-20 |
| 3412 | TORNADOES AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Storm | 2019-05-28 |
| 4230 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2015-07-20 |
| 4150 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-10-22 |
| 1932 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-08-10 |
| 1885 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-03-09 |
| 1849 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-06-25 |
| 1848 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND RECORD AND NEAR RECORD SNOW | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-06-24 |
| 1741 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-02-01 |
| 3282 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | EM | Severe Storm | 2007-12-12 |
| 1699 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-05-06 |
Show 7 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3236 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1579 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, HEAVY RAINS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-02-08 |
| 1535 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-08-03 |
| 1000 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-22 |
| 403 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1973-09-28 |
| 378 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1973-05-02 |
| 267 | TORNADOES, SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 1969-07-15 |
Storm Events in Kansas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Morris County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 8,265 | 0 | 9 | $24.2M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 7,987 | 3 | 34 | $30.6M |
| High Wind | 1,553 | 1 | 7 | $10.2M |
| Drought | 1,272 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Flash Flood | 1,037 | 6 | 9 | $35.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 27.4/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Moderate
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Drought Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Hurricane 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: Wildfire
Wildfire risk in the model reflects fuel, terrain, weather and how much development sits in the wildland-urban interface. It is one of the few hazards where the exposure is materially changed by land management and building choices, not only by where the county happens to be.
Worth noting for Morris County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Low), 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
Morris County's closest FEMA peer: Mountrail County, ND
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Morris County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Morris County shows 27 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Morris County: 23 of 27 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Morris County: NRI composite 27.4 (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 Morris County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Morris 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: 27.4 (Very 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
Most disaster-prone counties
With 27 FEMA declarations, Morris 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 Morris County?
The most common disaster type in Morris County is Severe Storm, with 20 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Flood (2), Winter Storm (1).
How does Morris County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kansas average?
FEMA lists 27 declaration records for Morris County. That is 50% above the Kansas county mean of 18.0. Its count is also 30% 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 Morris County received?
Morris County has received 23 major disaster declarations, representing 85% of all 27 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Morris County?
No. In Morris County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $2.4M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Morris County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Morris County was 2024, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1969 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Morris County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Morris County, Kansas has an overall risk score of 27.4 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively High; on community resilience, Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Morris County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Morris County is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Heat Wave (Relatively Moderate) and Ice Storm (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 434 years. 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.
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 Morris County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kansas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events