FEMA Records
23
Above median
Kentucky · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Owen County, KY
23 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 23
- FEMA declarations
- 17
- Major disasters
- 15
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Owen County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 23 declarations, more than 62% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 18% below the Kentucky county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 15%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 15%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 23
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 73
- 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 21187 · Owen County 23 declarations · rank 1179/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 23
- MAJOR-MID 74%
- RANK-LOWER #1,179
- PHOTO-FINISH Roanoke
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -18%
Nearest declaration peer: Roanoke, VA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kentucky state profile
Owen County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Owen County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Amherst · near 23
Amherst · near
23 declarations
- Owen · this county 23
Owen · this county
23 declarations
- Roanoke · near 23
Roanoke · near
23 declarations
- Vance · near 23
Vance · near
23 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Owen County carries 23 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1179 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Owen County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Owen County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Owen County
23 Top 38% higher than 62% 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
Owen County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Owen County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.7M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Landslide 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 Owen County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 73 paid claims, totaling $1.4M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $19.8K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Kentucky county averages 28.1 federal declaration records, while Owen County has 23. The gap is 18% 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 15.2/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $6.2M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Low social-vulnerability score and Relatively Low community-resilience score. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Landslide, 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 an average of 1 time per year here.
65 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Owen County, KY · 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
17/30
23 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.1x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
23 declarations (0.8x state county average of 28)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
17 of 23 declarations are major disasters (74%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Owen County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Owen 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
74%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
15
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Owen 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Landslide | Very Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 5.6 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 577 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.8 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 51 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 6.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 2.8 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 1.7 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 11 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 158 years |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 3.5 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 29,766 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 5
Biological 2
Severe Ice Storm 2
Snowstorm 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Owen County's record, 39% 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 - 17 73.9%
of all 23 declarations
Emergency - 6 26.1%
of all 23 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 3 | |
| 2023 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1989 | 1 | |
Show 2 earlier declaration years
| 1979 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 23 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 23 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3633 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4864 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-04-24 |
| 3626 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-04-03 |
| 3624 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, AND LANDSLIDES | EM | Severe Storm | 2025-02-16 |
| 4702 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-04-10 |
| 4497 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-28 |
| 3469 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4428 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-04-17 |
| 4361 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2018-04-26 |
| 4218 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, SNOWSTORM, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2015-05-12 |
| 4217 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2015-05-01 |
| 1976 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-05-04 |
| 1912 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, MUDSLIDES, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-05-11 |
| 1818 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 2009-02-05 |
| 3302 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Ice Storm | 2009-01-28 |
| 3231 | HURRICANE KATRINA | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1578 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND RECORD SNOW | DR | Snowstorm | 2005-02-08 |
| 1523 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-06-10 |
| 1163 | SEVERE STORM, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-03-04 |
| 1089 | BLIZZARD OF 96 | DR | Snowstorm | 1996-01-13 |
Show 3 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 821 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1989-02-24 |
| 568 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-12-12 |
| 420 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
Storm Events in Kentucky
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Owen County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 6,702 | 9 | 56 | $55.2M |
| Flash Flood | 1,757 | 65 | 16 | $42.6M |
| Flood | 1,646 | 31 | 6 | $37.1M |
| Hail | 1,534 | 1 | 0 | $4.7M |
| Winter Weather | 1,079 | 14 | 54 | $655.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
73
Total Paid
$1.4M
Avg Per Claim
$19.8K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 15.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$6.2M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Landslide Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Drought Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Hail Very Low
Wildfire 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: Landslide
Landslide risk is a function of slope, soil and water, so it is usually a SECOND-ORDER hazard: it is triggered by the rainfall, snowmelt, wildfire burn scars or seismic shaking that came first. That is why a county can carry high landslide exposure whose realized damage is recorded under a flood or storm declaration instead.
Worth noting for Owen County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Landslide 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
Owen County's closest FEMA peer: Sacramento County, CA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Owen County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Owen County shows 23 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Owen County: 17 of 23 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Owen County: NRI composite 15.2 (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 Owen County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Owen 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: 15.2 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 23. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Owen County's NFIP claims file (73 claims) and FEMA declaration history measure different federal records - this guide separates them from modeled NRI risk.
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 Owen County?
The most common disaster type in Owen County is Severe Storm, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (5), Biological (2), Severe Ice Storm (2).
How does Owen County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kentucky average?
The typical Kentucky county has 28.1 FEMA declaration records; Owen County has 23, or 18% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 11% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Owen County received?
Owen County has received 17 major disaster declarations, representing 74% of all 23 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Owen County filed?
Owen County has 73 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $1.4M in payments, with an average of $19.8K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Owen County?
No. In Owen County, Landslide has the highest National Risk Index rating (Very Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.7M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Owen County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Owen County was 2025, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Owen County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Owen County, Kentucky has an overall risk score of 15.2 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Low; on community resilience, Relatively Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $6.2M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Owen County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Owen County as of the latest release is Landslide (risk rating: Very Low). Other significant hazards include Tornado (Relatively Low) and Strong Wind (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts landslide here at an average of 1 time per year. 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 Owen County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kentucky profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events