FEMA Records
16
Below median
Kansas · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Smith County, KS
16 FEMA disaster declarations (1993-2025), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 16
- FEMA declarations
- 13
- Major disasters
- 21
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Smith 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 11% below the Kansas county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 21%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 21%
- 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
- 11
- severe storm declarations, the most common hazard here
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 20183 · Smith County 16 declarations · rank 2273/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 16
- MAJOR-HEAVY 81%
- RANK-LOWER #2,273
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -11%
Nearest declaration peer: Greene, GA (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Kansas state profile
Smith County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Smith 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
- Smith · this county 16
Smith · this county
16 declarations
- Terrell · near 16
Terrell · near
16 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Smith County carries 16 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2273 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Smith County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Smith County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Smith 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
Smith County's FEMA Risk Index score
What does Smith County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 21.2/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $8.3M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Low social-vulnerability score and Relatively High community-resilience score. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Hail stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 7.7 times per year here, based on 291 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.
Start with the state benchmark: a Kansas county averages 18.0 federal declaration records, while Smith County has 16. The gap is 11% 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.
56 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Smith County, KS · 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
11/25
16 declarations (0.9x state county average of 18)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
13 of 16 declarations are major disasters (81%)
Hazard Diversity High
13/20
5 different disaster types declared in Smith County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Smith 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
81%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
21
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Smith 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 High | an average of 7.7 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 48 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.5 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 12 times per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 3,001 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 45 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 7.2 modeled event-days per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,439 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 11
Biological 2
Snowstorm 1
Hurricane 1
Flood 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Smith County's record, 69% 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 - 13 81.3%
of all 16 declarations
Emergency - 3 18.8%
of all 16 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2013 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2010 | 1 | |
| 2008 | 3 | |
| 2007 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4869 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, AND WILDFIRES | DR | Severe Storm | 2025-05-21 |
| 4640 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2022-02-17 |
| 4504 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-29 |
| 3481 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4449 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, FLOODING,LANDSLIDES,AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2019-06-20 |
| 4112 | SNOWSTORM | DR | Snowstorm | 2013-04-26 |
| 4010 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-07-29 |
| 1932 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-08-10 |
| 1776 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-07-09 |
| 1741 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-02-01 |
| 3282 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | EM | Severe Storm | 2007-12-12 |
| 1699 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-05-06 |
| 1675 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-01-07 |
| 3236 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-10 |
| 1535 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-08-03 |
| 1000 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-07-22 |
Storm Events in Kansas
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Smith County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hail | 8,265 | 0 | 9 | $24.2M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 7,987 | 3 | 34 | $30.6M |
| High Wind | 1,553 | 1 | 7 | $10.2M |
| Drought | 1,272 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Flash Flood | 1,037 | 6 | 9 | $35.9M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 21.2/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$8.3M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hail Relatively High
Drought Relatively Moderate
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding 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 Smith County the two measures on this page point the same way: Hail is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Relatively High), 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
Smith County's closest FEMA peer: Clearwater County, MN
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Smith County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Smith County shows 16 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Smith County: 13 of 16 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Smith County: NRI composite 21.2 (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 Smith County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Smith 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: 21.2 (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
Most disaster-prone counties
With 16 FEMA declarations, Smith 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 Smith County?
The most common disaster type in Smith County is Severe Storm, with 11 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Snowstorm (1), Hurricane (1).
How does Smith County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Kansas average?
The typical Kansas county has 18.0 FEMA declaration records; Smith County has 16, or 11% 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 Smith County received?
Smith County has received 13 major disaster declarations, representing 81% of all 16 disaster declarations.
What was the worst year for disasters in Smith County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Smith County was 2008, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1993 to 2025.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Smith County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Smith County, Kansas has an overall risk score of 21.2 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Low; on community resilience, Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $8.3M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Smith County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Smith County is Hail (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Moderate) and Strong Wind (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hail here at an average of 7.7 times per year, drawn from 291 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.
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 Smith County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Kansas profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events