FEMA Records
19
Below median
Kansas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Ness County, KS
19 FEMA disaster declarations (1967-2025), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 19
- FEMA declarations
- 15
- Major disasters
- 11
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Ness County. Its 19 FEMA declarations are 6% above the Kansas county mean and exceed the count for 41% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 11%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 11%
- 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
- 2
- NFIP flood insurance claims filed
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 20135 · Ness County 19 declarations · rank 1909/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-MID 19
- MAJOR-MID 79%
- RANK-LOWER #1,909
- PHOTO-FINISH Bartow
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +6%
Nearest declaration peer: Bartow, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kansas state profile
Ness County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Ness County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Bartow · near 19
Bartow · near
19 declarations
- Ness · this county 19
Ness · 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 Ness County carries 19 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1909 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Ness County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Ness County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Ness 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
Ness County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Ness County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $1.7M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), 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 Ness 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 10.5/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $4.7M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively Moderate) and community resilience (Relatively Moderate). 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 60 modeled event-days per year here, based on 1,505 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 2 claims and $0 paid in total. PlainHazard calls 1-49 claims a light registry record, a label for this dataset rather than a finding that flood exposure is low. A short claims history can also reflect insurance take-up, the period covered, or losses that were never insured.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Ness County's 19 federal records stand 6% 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.
67 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Ness 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) Moderate
14/30
19 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.9x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
13/25
19 declarations (1.1x state county average of 18)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
15 of 19 declarations are major disasters (79%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Ness County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Ness 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
79%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
11
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Ness 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 | 60 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 10 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 2,723 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 12 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 5.1 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 3.6 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,128 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 45 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 2.4 modeled event-days per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 9
Snowstorm 2
Biological 2
Flood 2
Fire 1
Severe Ice Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Ness County's record, 47% 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 - 15 78.9%
of all 19 declarations
Emergency - 3 15.8%
of all 19 declarations
Fire Management - 1 5.3%
of all 19 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 2 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
| 1967 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4869 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, AND WILDFIRES | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-05-21 |
| 4654 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Snowstorm | 2022-05-25 |
| 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 |
| 5174 | NESS COUNTY FIRE | FM | Fire | 2017-03-06 |
| 4304 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2017-02-24 |
| 4150 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-10-22 |
| 4112 | SNOWSTORM | DR | Snowstorm | 2013-04-26 |
| 1776 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-09 |
| 3282 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | EM | Severe Storm | 2007-12-12 |
| 1675 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-01-07 |
| 1626 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2006-01-26 |
| 3236 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1535 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-08-03 |
| 1000 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-22 |
| 378 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1973-05-02 |
| 229 | TORNADOES, SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 1967-07-18 |
Storm Events in Kansas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Ness 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
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
2
Total Paid
$0
Avg Per Claim
$0
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 10.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$4.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Heat Wave 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 Ness 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 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
Ness County's closest FEMA peer: Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, AK
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Ness County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Ness County shows 19 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Ness County: 15 of 19 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Ness County: NRI composite 10.5 (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 Ness County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Ness 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: 10.5 (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, Ness 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 Ness County?
The most common disaster type in Ness County is Severe Storm, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Snowstorm (2), Biological (2), Flood (2).
How does Ness County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kansas average?
FEMA lists 19 declaration records for Ness County. That is 6% above the Kansas county mean of 18.0. Its count is also 8% below 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 Ness County received?
Ness County has received 15 major disaster declarations, representing 79% of all 19 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Ness County filed?
Ness County has 2 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $0 in payments, with an average of $0 per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Ness County?
No. In Ness County, Drought has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.7M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Ness County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Ness County was 2008, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1967 to 2025.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Ness County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Ness County, Kansas has an overall risk score of 10.5 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively Moderate and community resilience is Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $4.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Ness County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Ness County as of the latest release is Drought (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Moderate) and Wildfire (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 60 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 1,505 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.
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 Ness County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kansas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events