FEMA Records
23
Above median
Virginia · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Roanoke County, VA
23 FEMA disaster declarations (1972-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 23
- FEMA declarations
- 16
- Major disasters
- 52
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Roanoke County. Its 23 FEMA declarations are 13% above the Virginia county mean and exceed the count for 62% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it in the riskiest 48%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Riskiest 48%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 23
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 583
- 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 51161 · Roanoke County 23 declarations · rank 1104/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-ABOVE
- DECL-HEAVY 23
- MAJOR-MID 70%
- RANK-LOWER #1,104
- PHOTO-FINISH Amherst
- NRI-LOW 52
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-ABOVE +13%
Nearest declaration peer: Amherst, VA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Virginia state profile
Roanoke County in the declaration-count neighbourhood
FEMA declaration records among Roanoke County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Amherst · near 23
Amherst · near
23 declarations
- Roanoke · this county 23
Roanoke · this county
23 declarations
- Siskiyou · near 23
Siskiyou · near
23 declarations
- Vance · near 23
Vance · near
23 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Roanoke County carries 23 FEMA declaration records, ranked 1104 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
How Roanoke County's FEMA declaration count compares nationally
Roanoke County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Roanoke 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
Roanoke County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Roanoke County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $14.7M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Landslide 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 Roanoke County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
FEMA's NFIP table contains a substantial paid-claim history for this county: 583 claims and $6.6M in payments. PlainHazard labels 500 or more claims a heavy registry record; that is a reporting bucket, not an official FEMA risk grade. The average paid claim was $11.4K. NFIP totals exclude uninsured flood losses and do not measure how many properties currently carry a policy.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Roanoke County's 23 federal records stand 13% above the Virginia county mean of 20.4. 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county carries a high composite score on FEMA's National Risk Index, 52.2/100, rated Relatively Low. Its Expected Annual Loss rating is Relatively Low (roughly $19.9M in annualized losses), and a Relatively Low social-vulnerability profile combined with Relatively High community resilience shapes how much of that raw exposure becomes realized harm. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Landslide carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 2 years here.
68 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Roanoke County, VA · 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
14/25
23 declarations (1.1x state county average of 20)
Major Disaster Share High
17/25
16 of 23 declarations are major disasters (70%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Roanoke County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Roanoke 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
70%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
52
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Roanoke 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 | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 3.4 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 1.9 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 44 times per year |
| Hurricane | Relatively Low | roughly once every 19 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 9.5 times per year |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 733 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 2.9 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,512 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 23 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 2.4 modeled event-days per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 0.5 modeled event-days per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 6
Hurricane 5
Snowstorm 4
Flood 3
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Tropical Storm 1
Drought 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Roanoke County's record, 26% 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 - 16 69.6%
of all 23 declarations
Emergency - 7 30.4%
of all 23 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2012 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 2 | |
| 1995 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 2 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
Show 4 earlier declaration years
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1986 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1972 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3631 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-23 |
| 4831 | TROPICAL STORM HELENE | DR | Tropical Storm | 2024-10-01 |
| 4512 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-02 |
| 3448 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4411 | TROPICAL STORM MICHAEL | DR | Hurricane | 2018-12-18 |
| 3403 | HURRICANE FLORENCE | EM | Hurricane | 2018-09-11 |
| 3359 | HURRICANE SANDY | EM | Hurricane | 2012-10-29 |
| 4072 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2012-07-27 |
| 1874 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Snowstorm | 2010-02-16 |
| 3240 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-12 |
| 1570 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING FROM THE REMANANTS OF HURRICANE JEANNE | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-10-18 |
| 1458 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, RECORD/NEAR RECORD SNOWFALL, HEAVY RAIN,FLOODIND, AND MUDSLIDE | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-03-27 |
| 1318 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2000-02-28 |
| 1135 | HURRICANE FRAN AND ASSOCIATED SEVERE STORM COND | DR | Hurricane | 1996-09-06 |
| 1086 | BLIZZARD OF 96 (SEVERE SNOW STORM) | DR | Snowstorm | 1996-01-13 |
| 1059 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1995-07-01 |
| 1021 | SEVERE WINTER ICE STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1994-04-11 |
| 1014 | SEVERE ICE STORMS, FLOODING | DR | Snowstorm | 1994-03-10 |
| 3112 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Snowstorm | 1993-03-25 |
| 944 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1992-05-19 |
Show 3 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 755 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1985-11-09 |
| 3046 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-07-23 |
| 339 | TROPICAL STORM AGNES | DR | Flood | 1972-06-23 |
Storm Events in Virginia
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Roanoke County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 8,940 | 13 | 31 | $123.1M |
| Flood | 2,300 | 4 | 0 | $85.1M |
| Winter Weather | 2,049 | 6 | 32 | $902.0K |
| Flash Flood | 1,942 | 13 | 4 | $244.2M |
| Heavy Rain | 1,566 | 0 | 0 | $2.5M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
583
Total Paid
$6.6M
Avg Per Claim
$11.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 52.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$19.9M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Landslide Relatively Moderate
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Hurricane Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Avalanche Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Hail Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Tornado Very Low
Drought Very Low
Heat Wave 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 Roanoke County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Landslide 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
Roanoke County's closest FEMA peer: Anne Arundel County, MD
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Roanoke County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Roanoke County shows 23 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Roanoke County: 16 of 23 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Roanoke County: NRI composite 52.2 (Relatively 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 Roanoke County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Roanoke 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: 52.2 (Relatively 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
Roanoke County's NFIP claims file (583 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 Roanoke County?
The most common disaster type in Roanoke County is Severe Storm, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Hurricane (5), Snowstorm (4), Flood (3).
How does Roanoke County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Virginia average?
FEMA lists 23 declaration records for Roanoke County. That is 13% above the Virginia county mean of 20.4. 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 Roanoke County received?
Roanoke County has received 16 major disaster declarations, representing 70% of all 23 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Roanoke County filed?
Roanoke County has 583 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $6.6M in payments, with an average of $11.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Roanoke County?
No. In Roanoke County, Landslide has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $14.7M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Roanoke County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Roanoke County was 1994, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1972 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Roanoke County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Roanoke County, Virginia has an overall risk score of 52.2 out of 100 (Relatively Low). Social vulnerability here rates Relatively Low, while community resilience comes in at Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $19.9M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Roanoke County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Roanoke County is Landslide (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Strong Wind (Relatively Moderate) and Riverine Flooding (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts landslide here at roughly once every 2 years. 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 Roanoke County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Virginia profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events