FEMA Records
22
Above median
Kentucky · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Pendleton County, KY
22 FEMA disaster declarations (1968-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 22
- FEMA declarations
- 15
- Major disasters
- 30
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Pendleton County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 22 declarations, more than 57% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 22% below the Kentucky county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 30%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 30%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 22
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 180
- 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 21191 · Pendleton County 22 declarations · rank 1289/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 22
- MAJOR-MID 68%
- RANK-LOWER #1,289
- PHOTO-FINISH Hardy
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -22%
Nearest declaration peer: Hardy, WV (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kentucky state profile
Pendleton County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Pendleton County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Hardy · near 22
Hardy · near
22 declarations
- Pendleton · this county 22
Pendleton · this county
22 declarations
- Prairie · near 22
Prairie · near
22 declarations
- St. Francis · near 22
St. Francis · near
22 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Pendleton County carries 22 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1289 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Pendleton County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Pendleton County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Pendleton County
22 Top 43% higher than 57% 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
Pendleton County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Pendleton County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $6.1M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Lightning 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 Pendleton County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 180 paid claims, totaling $5.3M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $29.4K 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 Pendleton County has 22. The gap is 22% 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 29.9/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $9.2M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Moderate social-vulnerability score and Relatively Moderate community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Lightning carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 51 times per year here, based on 34,975 historical events on record.
63 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Pendleton 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
16/30
22 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.1x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
22 declarations (0.8x state county average of 28)
Major Disaster Share High
17/25
15 of 22 declarations are major disasters (68%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Pendleton County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Pendleton 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
68%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
30
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Pendleton 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 51 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.4 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 6 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 1.6 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 6.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 593 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 1.7 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 2.2 modeled event-days per year |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 11 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 92 years |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 36,507 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
Snowstorm 4
Biological 2
Flood 2
Severe Ice Storm 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Pendleton County's record, 41% 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 68.2%
of all 22 declarations
Emergency - 7 31.8%
of all 22 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 3 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2012 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Show 2 earlier declaration years
| 1989 | 1 | |
| 1968 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 22 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 22 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 |
| 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 |
| 4216 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, SNOWSTORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Snowstorm | 2015-04-30 |
| 4057 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2012-03-06 |
| 1976 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-05-04 |
| 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 |
| 1454 | SEVERE WINTER ICE AND SNOW STORMS, HEAVY RAIN, FLOODING, TORNADOES, AND MUD AND | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-03-14 |
| 1320 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2000-02-28 |
| 1163 | SEVERE STORM, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-03-04 |
| 1089 | BLIZZARD OF 96 | DR | Snowstorm | 1996-01-13 |
| 3104 | SEVERE SNOWFALL & WINTER STORM | EM | Snowstorm | 1993-03-16 |
Show 2 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 821 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1989-02-24 |
| 237 | TORNADOES & SEVERE STORMS | DR | Tornado | 1968-05-04 |
Storm Events in Kentucky
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Pendleton 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
180
Total Paid
$5.3M
Avg Per Claim
$29.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 29.9/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$9.2M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Landslide Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Drought 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: Lightning
Lightning is modeled as a high-frequency, low-per-event hazard: strike counts are large, but each strike affects a very small area. Its aggregate cost accumulates through structure fires, electrical and electronic damage, and it is one of the few hazards whose risk is essentially continuous through the season rather than episodic.
For Pendleton County the two measures on this page point the same way: Lightning 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
Pendleton County's closest FEMA peer: Lancaster County, PA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Pendleton County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Pendleton County shows 22 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Pendleton County: 15 of 22 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Pendleton County: NRI composite 29.9 (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 Pendleton County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Pendleton 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: 29.9 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 22. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Pendleton County's NFIP claims file (180 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 Pendleton County?
The most common disaster type in Pendleton County is Severe Storm, with 9 declarations. Other disaster types include Snowstorm (4), Biological (2), Flood (2).
How does Pendleton County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kentucky average?
The typical Kentucky county has 28.1 FEMA declaration records; Pendleton County has 22, or 22% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 6% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Pendleton County received?
Pendleton County has received 15 major disaster declarations, representing 68% of all 22 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Pendleton County filed?
Pendleton County has 180 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $5.3M in payments, with an average of $29.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Pendleton County?
No. In Pendleton County, Lightning has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $6.1M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Pendleton County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Pendleton County was 2025, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1968 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Pendleton County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Pendleton County, Kentucky has an overall risk score of 29.9 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Moderate; on community resilience, Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $9.2M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Pendleton County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Pendleton County as of the latest release is Lightning (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Strong Wind (Relatively Moderate) and Landslide (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts lightning here at an average of 51 times per year, drawn from 34,975 historical events on record. 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 Pendleton County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kentucky profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events