FEMA Records
16
Below median
Indiana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Pulaski County, IN
16 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 16
- FEMA declarations
- 9
- Major disasters
- 11
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Pulaski County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 16 declarations, more than 27% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 7% below the Indiana county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 11%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 11%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 16
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 172
- 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 18131 · Pulaski County 16 declarations · rank 2290/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 16
- MAJOR-MID 56%
- RANK-LOWER #2,290
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -7%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Indiana state profile
Pulaski County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Pulaski County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Frontier · near 16
Frontier · near
16 declarations
- Greene · near 16
Greene · near
16 declarations
- Pulaski · this county 16
Pulaski · this county
16 declarations
- Terrell · near 16
Terrell · near
16 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Pulaski County carries 16 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2290 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Pulaski County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Pulaski County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Pulaski County
16 27th percentile higher than 27% 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
Pulaski County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Pulaski County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $2.2M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Cold Wave carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively 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 Pulaski County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 172 paid claims, totaling $2.6M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $15.3K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Indiana county averages 17.1 federal declaration records, while Pulaski County has 16. The gap is 7% 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
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 11.2/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $5.1M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively Low) and community resilience (Relatively High). Even the county's top-rated hazard, Cold Wave, only reaches Relatively 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 4.1 times per year here, based on 78 historical events on record.
56 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Pulaski County, IN · 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
16 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.8x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
16 declarations (0.9x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share High
14/25
9 of 16 declarations are major disasters (56%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Pulaski County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Pulaski 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
56%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
11
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Pulaski 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.4 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 718 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 14 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 5.1 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 43 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | an average of 10 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 0.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 44 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 50,375 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 5
Snowstorm 4
Biological 2
Flood 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Pulaski County's record, 31% 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 - 9 56.3%
of all 16 declarations
Emergency - 7 43.8%
of all 16 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 16 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 16 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3641 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 4515 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-03 |
| 3456 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4363 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2018-05-04 |
| 1832 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-04-22 |
| 1740 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-01-30 |
| 3274 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2007-03-12 |
| 3238 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1573 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-01-21 |
| 1476 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-07-11 |
| 3162 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2001-01-24 |
| 3135 | IN-WINTER STORM 12/23/98 | EM | Snowstorm | 1999-01-15 |
| 1217 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-05-08 |
| 891 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1991-01-05 |
| 3028 | SNOWSTORMS | EM | Snowstorm | 1977-02-02 |
| 423 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
Storm Events in Indiana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Pulaski County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,886 | 16 | 73 | $57.6M |
| Hail | 1,643 | 0 | 0 | $1.7M |
| Winter Weather | 1,166 | 32 | 80 | $2.5M |
| Flood | 850 | 13 | 3 | $16.0M |
| Flash Flood | 648 | 14 | 5 | $97.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
172
Total Paid
$2.6M
Avg Per Claim
$15.3K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 11.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$5.1M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Hurricane Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Drought Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Lightning 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: Cold Wave
Cold Wave measures exposure to extreme cold rather than to snow. Its harm is concentrated in health effects, burst infrastructure and energy demand spikes, and it falls hardest where the building stock and the grid were not built with sustained cold in mind.
Worth noting for Pulaski County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Cold Wave carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively 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
Pulaski County's closest FEMA peer: Falls County, TX
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Pulaski County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Pulaski County shows 16 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Pulaski County: 9 of 16 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Pulaski County: NRI composite 11.2 (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 Pulaski County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Pulaski 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: 11.2 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 16. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Pulaski County's NFIP claims file (172 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 Pulaski County?
The most common disaster type in Pulaski County is Severe Storm, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Snowstorm (4), Biological (2), Flood (2).
How does Pulaski County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Indiana average?
The typical Indiana county has 17.1 FEMA declaration records; Pulaski County has 16, or 7% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 23% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Pulaski County received?
Pulaski County has received 9 major disaster declarations, representing 56% of all 16 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Pulaski County filed?
Pulaski County has 172 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $2.6M in payments, with an average of $15.3K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Pulaski County?
No. In Pulaski County, Cold Wave has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $2.2M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Pulaski County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Pulaski County was 2005, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Pulaski County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Pulaski County, Indiana has an overall risk score of 11.2 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively Low and community resilience is Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $5.1M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Pulaski County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Pulaski County as of the latest release is Cold Wave (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Low) and Earthquake (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts cold wave here at an average of 4.1 times per year, drawn from 78 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.
FEMA OpenFEMA declarations + NRI for Pulaski County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Indiana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events