FEMA Records
17
Below median
Nebraska · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Pierce County, NE
17 FEMA disaster declarations (1967-2022), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 17
- FEMA declarations
- 15
- Major disasters
- 14
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Pierce County. Its 17 FEMA declarations are 1% above the Nebraska county mean and exceed the count for 32% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 14%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 14%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 17
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 12
- 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 31139 · Pierce County 17 declarations · rank 2166/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-MID 17
- MAJOR-HEAVY 88%
- RANK-LOWER #2,166
- PHOTO-FINISH Curry
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +1%
Nearest declaration peer: Curry, OR (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Nebraska state profile
Pierce County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Pierce County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Curry · near 17
Curry · near
17 declarations
- Murray · near 17
Murray · near
17 declarations
- Pierce · this county 17
Pierce · this county
17 declarations
- Washington · near 17
Washington · near
17 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Pierce County carries 17 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2166 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Pierce County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Pierce County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Pierce County
17 32nd percentile higher than 32% 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
Pierce County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Pierce County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Hail 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 Pierce County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 14.2/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $8.4M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Very Low) and community resilience (Relatively Moderate). 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 5.8 times per year here, based on 222 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 12 claims and $197.1K 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. Pierce County's 17 federal records stand 1% above the Nebraska county mean of 16.8. 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.
60 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Pierce County, NE · 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
12/30
17 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density High
13/25
17 declarations (1.0x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share Very High
22/25
15 of 17 declarations are major disasters (88%)
Hazard Diversity High
13/20
5 different disaster types declared in Pierce County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Pierce 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
88%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
14
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Pierce 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 5.8 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 35 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 965 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 16 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 3 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 14 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 6.3 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.2 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 41 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,637 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 7
Flood 6
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Hurricane 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Pierce 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 88.2%
of all 17 declarations
Emergency - 2 11.8%
of all 17 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 3 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2006 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
| 1971 | 2 | |
| 1967 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 17 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 17 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4662 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-07-27 |
| 4521 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-04 |
| 3483 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4420 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-03-21 |
| 4375 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Snowstorm | 2018-06-29 |
| 1924 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-07-15 |
| 1902 | SEVERE STORMS, ICE JAMS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2010-04-21 |
| 1878 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-25 |
| 1674 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-01-07 |
| 1627 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2006-01-26 |
| 3245 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEES | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1517 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-05-25 |
| 1480 | SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-07-21 |
| 552 | STORMS, ICE JAMS, SNOWMELT & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-03-24 |
| 308 | FLOODS | DR | Flood | 1971-07-07 |
| 303 | FLOODS | DR | Flood | 1971-02-23 |
| 228 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1967-07-18 |
Storm Events in Nebraska
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Pierce County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 6,079 | 0 | 2 | $237.7M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,757 | 3 | 19 | $228.1M |
| Drought | 1,658 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| High Wind | 1,647 | 1 | 1 | $22.1M |
| Winter Storm | 1,155 | 0 | 2 | $335.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
12
Total Paid
$197.1K
Avg Per Claim
$16.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 14.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$8.4M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hail Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Cold Wave 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: 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 Pierce 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
Pierce County's closest FEMA peer: Bremer County, IA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Pierce County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Pierce County shows 17 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Pierce County: 15 of 17 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Pierce County: NRI composite 14.2 (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 Pierce County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Pierce 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: 14.2 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 17. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 17 FEMA declarations, Pierce 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 Pierce County?
The most common disaster type in Pierce County is Severe Storm, with 7 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (6), Biological (2), Snowstorm (1).
How does Pierce County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Nebraska average?
FEMA lists 17 declaration records for Pierce County. That is 1% above the Nebraska county mean of 16.8. Its count is also 18% below 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 Pierce County received?
Pierce County has received 15 major disaster declarations, representing 88% of all 17 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Pierce County filed?
Pierce County has 12 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $197.1K in payments, with an average of $16.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Pierce County?
No. In Pierce County, Hail has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.6M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Pierce County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Pierce County was 2010, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1967 to 2022.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Pierce County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Pierce County, Nebraska has an overall risk score of 14.2 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very Low; on community resilience, Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $8.4M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Pierce County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Pierce County as of the latest release is Hail (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Wildfire (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hail here at an average of 5.8 times per year, drawn from 222 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.
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 Pierce County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Nebraska profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events