FEMA Records
23
Above median
Iowa · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Palo Alto County, IA
23 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 23
- FEMA declarations
- 20
- Major disasters
- 15
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Palo Alto County. Its 23 FEMA declarations are 19% above the Iowa county mean and exceed the count for 62% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 15%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- 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
- 4
- 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.
How does Palo Alto County compare?
Palo Alto County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
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 · 2026-08-03
Palo Alto County's FEMA Risk Index score
FEMA National Risk Index composite score vs. the Iowa county average
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Palo Alto County is led by Cold Wave (about $2.5M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), 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 Palo Alto County's hazard record show?
Declaration frequency
The FEMA register is busy by both local and national comparisons. It contains 23 entries for Palo Alto County, including 20 Major Disaster records, 19% above the Iowa county mean. Across the 59-year span, that works out to 0.4 declarations a year. Severe Storm leads the file with 11 entries. Declaration type records the federal action taken, not every assistance program approved.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 15.5/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $9.7M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very Low social-vulnerability score and Very High community-resilience score. 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 16 modeled event-days per year here, based on 581 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 4 claims and $37.7K 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.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Palo Alto County's 23 federal records stand 19% above the Iowa county mean of 19.3. 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.
69 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Palo Alto County, IA · 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 High
15/25
23 declarations (1.2x state county average of 19)
Major Disaster Share Very High
22/25
20 of 23 declarations are major disasters (87%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Palo Alto County
Historical Declaration Activity
Activity Band
High
vs. Iowa Avg
+19%
State avg: 19.3
vs. National Avg
+11%
National avg: 20.7
Avg Per Year
0.4
Over 59 years
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Palo Alto 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
87%
Mostly major
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 Palo Alto 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 | 16 modeled event-days per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.8 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 11 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 41 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 18 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 3.7 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 17 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 3,203 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 3.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1.9 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,262 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 11
Flood 7
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Hurricane 1
Severe Ice Storm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Palo Alto County's record, 48% 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 - 20 87.0%
of all 23 declarations
Emergency - 3 13.0%
of all 23 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 3 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Show 3 earlier declaration years
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1969 | 2 | |
| 1965 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4796 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-06-24 |
| 4642 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-02-23 |
| 4483 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-23 |
| 3480 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4421 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-03-23 |
| 4386 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2018-08-20 |
| 4184 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2014-07-24 |
| 4126 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2013-07-02 |
| 1930 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-07-29 |
| 1880 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-03-02 |
| 1877 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-25 |
| 1763 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-05-27 |
| 1727 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-09-14 |
| 3275 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2007-03-30 |
| 3239 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1518 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-05-25 |
| 1367 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2001-05-02 |
| 1230 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1998-07-02 |
| 996 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-09 |
| 928 | ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 1991-12-26 |
Show 3 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 269 | HEAVY RAINS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-08-14 |
| 259 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1969-04-25 |
| 193 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1965-04-22 |
Storm Events in Iowa
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Palo Alto County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,928 | 6 | 227 | $40.5M |
| Hail | 3,736 | 0 | 0 | $4.3M |
| Heavy Rain | 2,394 | 0 | 0 | $292.0K |
| Drought | 1,556 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Winter Storm | 1,543 | 3 | 4 | $2.8M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
4
Total Paid
$37.7K
Avg Per Claim
$9.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 15.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$9.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Heat Wave 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: 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 Palo Alto 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
Palo Alto County's closest FEMA peer: Codington County, SD
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Palo Alto County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Palo Alto County shows 23 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Palo Alto County: 20 of 23 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Palo Alto County: NRI composite 15.5 (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 Palo Alto County - capture-dated entries only.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 23 FEMA declarations, Palo Alto 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).
Related
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Palo Alto County?
The most common disaster type in Palo Alto County is Severe Storm, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (7), Biological (2), Snowstorm (1).
How does Palo Alto County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Iowa average?
FEMA lists 23 declaration records for Palo Alto County. That is 19% above the Iowa county mean of 19.3. Its count is also 11% above 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 Palo Alto County received?
Palo Alto County has received 20 major disaster declarations, representing 87% of all 23 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Palo Alto County filed?
Palo Alto County has 4 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $37.7K in payments, with an average of $9.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Palo Alto County?
No. In Palo Alto County, Drought has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Cold Wave leads Expected Annual Loss at about $2.5M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Palo Alto County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Palo Alto County was 2010, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Palo Alto County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Palo Alto County, Iowa has an overall risk score of 15.5 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very Low and community resilience is Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $9.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Palo Alto County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Palo Alto County is Drought (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Moderate) and Cold Wave (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 16 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 581 historical events on record. These scores are based on FEMA's analysis of historical event frequency, 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.
What this means for Palo Alto County
Palo Alto County, IA has 23 federal declaration records, 19% more than the Iowa county mean of 19; its history sits in PlainHazard's high activity band.
- Within this above-state-average declaration file, major disaster leads with 20 of 23 records; the category describes past federal action, not the next likely hazard. Iowa overview
- The state benchmark and national rank point the same way: this count tops the Iowa mean and the totals for 62% of 3,266 U.S. counties. Most-disaster rankings
- A short NFIP claims file cannot establish low flood exposure; the data guide explains the limits of each federal measure. Disaster-data guide
An above-average declaration count records past federal responses; it does not predict the next event. Current warnings come from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials.
PlainHazard derives this profile from FEMA's Disaster Declarations Summaries and National Risk Index data. The declaration comparison covers 3,266 U.S. counties and county equivalents in this database, refreshed as of 2026-08-03. Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
All federal data sources used on this page
- FEMA OpenFEMA, Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 - all federally-declared disasters for this county. fema.gov/openfema/disaster-declarations
- FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) - per-county per-hazard risk ratings and expected annual loss. hazards.fema.gov/nri
- NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database - state-level storm/severe-weather event records, 2015-2025. ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents
Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainHazard Editorial
Verify with FEMA → · Verify with FEMA NRI → · Verify with NOAA →
Every figure on PlainHazard is rendered directly from FEMA federal disaster data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or national statistics report, the data & editorial changelog, or report a data error.