FEMA Records
21
Above median
North Dakota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Oliver County, ND
21 FEMA disaster declarations (1966-2025), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 21
- FEMA declarations
- 18
- Major disasters
- 2
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Oliver County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 21 declarations, more than 52% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 19% below the North Dakota county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 2%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 2%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 21
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 8
- 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 38065 · Oliver County 21 declarations · rank 1563/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 21
- MAJOR-HEAVY 86%
- RANK-LOWER #1,563
- PHOTO-FINISH Montgomery
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -19%
Nearest declaration peer: Montgomery, IN (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · North Dakota state profile
Oliver County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Oliver County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Atascosa · near 21
Atascosa · near
21 declarations
- Mason · near 21
Mason · near
21 declarations
- Montgomery · near 21
Montgomery · near
21 declarations
- Oliver · this county 21
Oliver · this county
21 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Oliver County carries 21 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1563 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Oliver County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Oliver County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Oliver County
21 Top 48% higher than 52% 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
Oliver County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Oliver County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $1.4M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Wildfire carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Very 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 Oliver 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 1.7/100 (rated Very Low). Projected losses are minimal, Expected Annual Loss reads Very Low (roughly $2.6M in annualized losses), and the county's exposure is shaped by a Very Low social-vulnerability profile and Relatively High community resilience. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Wildfire, only reaches Very 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 2,044 years here.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 8 claims and $67.7K 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.
Start with the state benchmark: a North Dakota county averages 25.9 federal declaration records, while Oliver County has 21. The gap is 19% 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.
59 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Oliver County, ND · 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
15/30
21 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.0x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
21 declarations (0.8x state county average of 26)
Major Disaster Share Very High
21/25
18 of 21 declarations are major disasters (86%)
Hazard Diversity High
13/20
5 different disaster types declared in Oliver County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Oliver 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
86%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
2
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Oliver 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 | Very Low | roughly once every 2,044 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 19 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 2.6 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 15 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 20 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 6 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 1.6 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 1.7 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 30 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 11,628 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
Flood 8
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Coastal Storm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Oliver County's record, 43% 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 - 18 85.7%
of all 21 declarations
Emergency - 3 14.3%
of all 21 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 2 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1979 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
Show 3 earlier declaration years
| 1970 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 1 | |
| 1966 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 21 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 21 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4888 | SEVERE STORM, TORNADOES, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-09-11 |
| 4660 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-07-13 |
| 4509 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-01 |
| 3477 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 3318 | FLOODING | EM | Flood | 2011-04-07 |
| 1901 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-04-21 |
| 1879 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-26 |
| 1829 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-03-24 |
| 1616 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND RECORD AND/OR NEAR RECORD SNOW | DR | Snowstorm | 2005-11-21 |
| 3247 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Coastal Storm | 2005-09-13 |
| 1334 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING AND GROUND SATURATION | DR | Severe Storm | 2000-06-27 |
| 1174 | SEVERE FLOODING,SEVERE WINTER STORMS, SNOWMELT, SPRING RAINS | DR | Flood | 1997-04-07 |
| 1157 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND BLIZZARD CONDITIONS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-12 |
| 1118 | SEVERE STORMS,FLOODING, & ICE JAMS | DR | Severe Storm | 1996-06-05 |
| 1032 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-07-01 |
| 1001 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-26 |
| 581 | SEVERE STORMS, SNOWMELT & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1979-04-26 |
| 554 | STORMS, ICE JAMS, SNOWMELT & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-04-17 |
| 287 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1970-06-05 |
| 256 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-04-18 |
Show 1 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 220 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1966-07-09 |
Storm Events in North Dakota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Oliver County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 2,705 | 0 | 2 | $116.1M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 2,459 | 2 | 10 | $67.0M |
| High Wind | 1,184 | 1 | 1 | $2.9M |
| Heavy Snow | 925 | 0 | 3 | $650.0K |
| Blizzard | 905 | 2 | 2 | $60.0M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
8
Total Paid
$67.7K
Avg Per Claim
$8.5K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 1.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$2.6M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Drought Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Lightning 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: 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 Oliver County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire carries the highest modeled rating (Very 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
Oliver County's closest FEMA peer: Houston County, MN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Oliver County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Oliver County shows 21 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Oliver County: 18 of 21 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Oliver County: NRI composite 1.7 (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 Oliver County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Oliver 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: 1.7 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 21. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 21 FEMA declarations, Oliver 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 Oliver County?
The most common disaster type in Oliver County is Severe Storm, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (8), Biological (2), Snowstorm (1).
How does Oliver County's FEMA declaration record compare with the North Dakota average?
The typical North Dakota county has 25.9 FEMA declaration records; Oliver County has 21, or 19% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 1% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Oliver County received?
Oliver County has received 18 major disaster declarations, representing 86% of all 21 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Oliver County filed?
Oliver County has 8 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $67.7K in payments, with an average of $8.5K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Oliver County?
No. In Oliver County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Very Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.4M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Oliver County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Oliver County was 1997, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1966 to 2025.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Oliver County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Oliver County, North Dakota has an overall risk score of 1.7 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very Low; on community resilience, Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $2.6M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Oliver County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Oliver County is Wildfire (risk rating: Very Low). Other significant hazards include Winter Weather (Relatively Low) and Hail (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 2,044 years. 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 Oliver County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · North Dakota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events