FEMA Records
13
Low volume
Kansas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Norton County, KS
13 FEMA disaster declarations (2005-2025), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 13
- FEMA declarations
- 10
- Major disasters
- 20
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Norton 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 28% below the Kansas county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 20%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 20%
- 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
- 9
- 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 20137 · Norton County 13 declarations · rank 2705/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 13
- MAJOR-MID 77%
- RANK-LOWER #2,705
- PHOTO-FINISH Clarke
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -28%
Nearest declaration peer: Clarke, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kansas state profile
Norton County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Norton 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
- Norton · this county 13
Norton · this county
13 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Norton County carries 13 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2705 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Norton County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Norton County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Norton 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
Norton County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Norton County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 19.8/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.3M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Moderate social-vulnerability score and Relatively Moderate community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Hail carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 7.7 times per year here, based on 293 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 Kansas county averages 18.0 federal declaration records, while Norton County has 13. The gap is 28% 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.
47 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Norton 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
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 18)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
10 of 13 declarations are major disasters (77%)
Hazard Diversity High
10/20
4 different disaster types declared in Norton County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Norton 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
77%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
20
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Norton 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 7.7 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 74 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 12 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 2,950 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 4.5 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 43 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,865 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 9
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Hurricane 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Norton County's record, 69% 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 - 10 76.9%
of all 13 declarations
Emergency - 3 23.1%
of all 13 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2010 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4869 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, AND WILDFIRES | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-05-21 |
| 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 |
| 4319 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, SNOWSTORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Snowstorm | 2017-06-16 |
| 4287 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2016-10-20 |
| 1932 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-08-10 |
| 1885 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-03-09 |
| 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 |
Storm Events in Kansas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Norton 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: 19.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.3M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hail Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Earthquake 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: Hail
Hail is among the most expensive hazards in the model relative to how little it threatens life. It concentrates on roofs, vehicles and crops, and a single severe storm can generate an insurance loss across a metropolitan area without a single injury.
For Norton County the two measures on this page point the same way: Hail is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively Moderate), and Severe Storm declarations also lead its federal record. Where the model and the declaration history agree, the reading is comparatively straightforward, the hazard is both expected and repeatedly realised.
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
Norton County's closest FEMA peer: Benton County, MN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Norton County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Norton County shows 13 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Norton County: 10 of 13 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Norton County: NRI composite 19.8 (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 Norton County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Norton 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: 19.8 (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, Norton 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 Norton County?
The most common disaster type in Norton County is Severe Storm, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Snowstorm (1), Hurricane (1).
How does Norton County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kansas average?
The typical Kansas county has 18.0 FEMA declaration records; Norton County has 13, or 28% 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 Norton County received?
Norton County has received 10 major disaster declarations, representing 77% of all 13 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Norton County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Norton County was 2008, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 2005 to 2025.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Norton County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Norton County, Kansas has an overall risk score of 19.8 out of 100 (Very Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Moderate, while community resilience comes in at Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.3M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Norton County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Norton County as of the latest release is Hail (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Strong Wind (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hail here at an average of 7.7 times per year, drawn from 293 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 Norton County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kansas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events