FEMA Records
30
High volume
Nebraska · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Saunders County, NE
30 FEMA disaster declarations (1967-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 30
- FEMA declarations
- 28
- Major disasters
- 29
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Two federal records point in the busier direction for Saunders County. Its 30 FEMA declarations are 79% above the Nebraska county mean and exceed the count for 86% of the 3,266 counties in this registry. Separately, FEMA's National Risk Index places it safer than 29%, based on modeled expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience.
- Safer than 29%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 30
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 259
- 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 31155 · Saunders County 30 declarations · rank 443/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-HIGH
- DECL-HEAVY 30
- MAJOR-HEAVY 93%
- RANK-MID #443
- PHOTO-FINISH Jefferson
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-HIGH +79%
Nearest declaration peer: Jefferson, OK (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Nebraska state profile
Saunders County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Saunders County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Clallam · near 30
Clallam · near
30 declarations
- Jefferson · near 30
Jefferson · near
30 declarations
- Latimer · near 30
Latimer · near
30 declarations
- Saunders · this county 30
Saunders · this county
30 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Saunders County carries 30 FEMA declaration records, ranked 443 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Saunders County ranks in the national declaration registry
Saunders County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Saunders County
30 Top 14% higher than 86% 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
Saunders County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Saunders County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $6.2M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Low), 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 Saunders County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 259 paid claims, totaling $4.3M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $16.6K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
The declaration register points in the busier direction. Saunders County's 30 federal records stand 79% 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 29.1/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Low (roughly $15.7M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very Low social-vulnerability score and Very High community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Hail carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 7.3 times per year here, based on 275 historical events on record.
85 /100
Historical Activity Index
Very High historical activity
Saunders 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) High
22/30
30 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density Very High
22/25
30 declarations (1.8x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share Very High
23/25
28 of 30 declarations are major disasters (93%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Saunders County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Saunders 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
93%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
29
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Saunders 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 7.3 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 31 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 824 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.3 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 14 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 2 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 7.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 45 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 4.7 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,631 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 16
Flood 7
Biological 2
Tornado 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Severe Ice Storm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Saunders County's record, 53% 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 - 28 93.3%
of all 30 declarations
Emergency - 2 6.7%
of all 30 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2025 | 2 | |
| 2024 | 2 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2021 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2017 | 1 | |
| 2015 | 1 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
Show 9 earlier declaration years
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 2 | |
| 1984 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1971 | 1 | |
| 1967 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 30 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 30 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4896 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-10-22 |
| 4868 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Winter Storm | 2025-05-21 |
| 4838 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-10-21 |
| 4822 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-09-24 |
| 4808 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-08-20 |
| 4641 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-02-23 |
| 4616 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2021-09-06 |
| 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 |
| 4325 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2017-08-01 |
| 4225 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2015-06-25 |
| 4179 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 2014-06-17 |
| 1945 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, TORNADO, AND STRAIGHT-LIN | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-10-21 |
| 1924 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-07-15 |
| 1878 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS AND SNOWSTORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-02-25 |
| 1779 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-18 |
| 1770 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-06-20 |
| 1706 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-06-06 |
| 3245 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEES | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
Show 10 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1517 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-05-25 |
| 1190 | SEVERE SNOW STORMS, RAIN, AND STRONG WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-11-01 |
| 998 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-19 |
| 983 | ICE JAMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-04-02 |
| 716 | TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 1984-07-03 |
| 552 | STORMS, ICE JAMS, SNOWMELT & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1978-03-24 |
| 500 | ICE STORMS & HIGH WINDS | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 1976-04-08 |
| 406 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1973-10-20 |
| 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 Saunders 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
259
Total Paid
$4.3M
Avg Per Claim
$16.6K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 29.1/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$15.7M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hail Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Moderate
Wildfire Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Hurricane No Rating
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 Saunders 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
Saunders County's closest FEMA peer: Thurston County, WA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Saunders County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Saunders County shows 30 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Saunders County: 28 of 30 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Saunders County: NRI composite 29.1 (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 Saunders County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Saunders 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: 29.1 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 30. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Saunders County's NFIP claims file (259 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 Saunders County?
The most common disaster type in Saunders County is Severe Storm, with 16 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (7), Biological (2), Tornado (2).
How does Saunders County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Nebraska average?
FEMA lists 30 declaration records for Saunders County. That is 79% above the Nebraska county mean of 16.8. Its count is also 45% 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 Saunders County received?
Saunders County has received 28 major disaster declarations, representing 93% of all 30 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Saunders County filed?
Saunders County has 259 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $4.3M in payments, with an average of $16.6K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Saunders County?
No. In Saunders County, Hail has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $6.2M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Saunders County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Saunders County was 1993, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1967 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Saunders County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Saunders County, Nebraska has an overall risk score of 29.1 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Very Low; on community resilience, Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $15.7M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Saunders County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Saunders County 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 7.3 times per year, drawn from 275 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 Saunders County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Nebraska profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events