FEMA Records
19
Below median
Texas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Motley County, TX
19 FEMA disaster declarations (1986-2021), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Fire.
- 19
- FEMA declarations
- 11
- Major disasters
- 3
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Fire
- Top hazard
The verdict
Motley 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 9% below the Texas county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 3%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 3%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 19
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 5
- fire declarations, the most common hazard here
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Fire Management Assistance (FM) records, which are not presidential disaster declarations, alongside Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 48345 · Motley County 19 declarations · rank 1849/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 19
- MAJOR-MID 58%
- RANK-LOWER #1,849
- PHOTO-FINISH Bartow
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Fire
- VS-ST-BELOW -9%
Nearest declaration peer: Bartow, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Texas state profile
Motley County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Motley County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bartow · near 19
Bartow · near
19 declarations
- Motley · this county 19
Motley · 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 Motley County carries 19 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1849 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Motley County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Motley County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Motley 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
Motley County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Motley County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county sits at the very bottom of FEMA's National Risk Index nationally, a composite score of 3.2/100 (rated Very Low). Projected losses are minimal, Expected Annual Loss reads Very Low (roughly $1.8M in annualized losses), and the county's exposure is shaped by a Relatively High social-vulnerability profile and Very Low community resilience. 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 89 modeled event-days per year here, based on 2,247 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 Texas county averages 20.9 federal declaration records, while Motley County has 19. The gap is 9% 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.
57 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Motley County, TX · 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
11/25
19 declarations (0.9x state county average of 21)
Major Disaster Share High
14/25
11 of 19 declarations are major disasters (58%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Motley County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Motley 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
58%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
3
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Motley 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 | 89 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 106 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 5.3 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 7.2 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 2.1 times per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 2.8 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 1.4 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 116 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,905 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 49 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Fire 5
Severe Storm 4
Hurricane 4
Severe Ice Storm 2
Biological 2
Drought 1
Tornado 1
What Fire declarations mean here
Fire is the most frequent declaration type on Motley County's record, 26% of its declarations. Wildfire is the one hazard here with its own dedicated federal instrument: the Fire Management Assistance Grant, which appears in this data as an FM record. An FMAG can be authorised while a fire is still burning, on a timescale of hours, because its purpose is to reimburse the cost of fighting a fire that threatens to become a major disaster.
That distinction matters when comparing counties. An FM declaration is not a presidential major disaster declaration and does not carry the same assistance programmes, so a fire-heavy county's total is not directly comparable with a hurricane-heavy county's total unless the declaration types are separated, which is why they are listed separately on this page.
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 - 11 57.9%
of all 19 declarations
Emergency - 7 36.8%
of all 19 declarations
Fire Management - 1 5.3%
of all 19 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2016 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 2 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1990 | 1 | |
| 1986 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4586 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-19 |
| 3554 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2021-02-14 |
| 4485 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-25 |
| 3458 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4255 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-02-09 |
| 1999 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2011-07-01 |
| 2863 | MATADOR FIRE | FM | Fire | 2011-02-27 |
| 1931 | HURRICANE ALEX | DR | Hurricane | 2010-08-03 |
| 3284 | WILDFIRES | EM | Fire | 2008-03-14 |
| 1624 | EXTREME WILDFIRE THREAT | DR | Fire | 2006-01-11 |
| 1606 | HURRICANE RITA | DR | Hurricane | 2005-09-24 |
| 3261 | HURRICANE RITA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-21 |
| 3216 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-02 |
| 3142 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARDS | EM | Fire | 1999-09-01 |
| 1239 | TROPICAL STORM CHARLEY | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-08-26 |
| 3113 | EXTREME FIRE HAZARD | EM | Drought | 1993-09-10 |
| 960 | EXCESSIVE RAIN & HAIL | DR | Severe Storm | 1992-09-09 |
| 863 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1990-05-02 |
| 772 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1986-09-10 |
Storm Events in Texas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Motley County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 14,072 | 0 | 15 | $7.4B |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 10,293 | 41 | 141 | $369.9M |
| Drought | 7,032 | 0 | 0 | $86.0K |
| Flash Flood | 4,728 | 338 | 24 | $47.6B |
| Heat | 4,079 | 119 | 405 | $0 |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 3.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$1.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively High
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Riverine Flooding 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 Motley 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 Fire. 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
Motley County's closest FEMA peer: Cobb County, GA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Motley County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Motley County shows 19 FEMA declarations, led by Fire.
Similar Major-disaster share
Motley County: 11 of 19 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Motley County: NRI composite 3.2 (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 Motley County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Motley 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: 3.2 (Very Low).
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
Most disaster-prone counties
With 19 FEMA declarations, Motley 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 Motley County?
The most common disaster type in Motley County is Fire, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (4), Hurricane (4), Severe Ice Storm (2).
How does Motley County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Texas average?
The typical Texas county has 20.9 FEMA declaration records; Motley County has 19, or 9% 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 Motley County received?
Motley County has received 11 major disaster declarations, representing 58% of all 19 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Motley County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Motley County was 2005, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1986 to 2021.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Motley County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Motley County, Texas has an overall risk score of 3.2 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively High; on community resilience, Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $1.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Motley County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Motley County is Drought (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Wildfire (Relatively Low) and Hail (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 89 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 2,247 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.
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 Motley County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Texas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events