FEMA Records
16
Below median
Indiana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
St. Joseph County, IN
16 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Moderate. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 16
- FEMA declarations
- 9
- Major disasters
- 86
- NRI risk · Relatively Moderate
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
St. Joseph 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 in the riskiest 14%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 14%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Moderate
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 16
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 180
- 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 18141 · St. Joseph County 16 declarations · rank 2259/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-MID · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 16
- MAJOR-MID 56%
- RANK-LOWER #2,259
- PHOTO-FINISH Greene
- NRI-MID 86
- 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
St. Joseph County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among St. Joseph 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
- St. Joseph · this county 16
St. Joseph · this county
16 declarations
- Terrell · near 16
Terrell · near
16 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows St. Joseph County carries 16 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2259 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
St. Joseph County versus quieter counties in this dataset
St. Joseph County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · St. Joseph 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
St. Joseph County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for St. Joseph County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $27.5M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Cold Wave carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High). 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 St. Joseph County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 180 paid claims, totaling $1.3M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $7.4K 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 St. Joseph 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
This county sits among the highest-risk counties nationally on FEMA's National Risk Index, a composite score of 85.8/100 (Relatively Moderate). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Moderate (roughly $60.2M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Relatively Low and community resilience Very High, both critical modifiers of realized harm here. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Cold Wave stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 3.3 times per year here, based on 63 historical events on record.
56 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
St. Joseph 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 St. Joseph County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - St. Joseph 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
86
Relatively Moderate
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike St. Joseph 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 High | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively High | an average of 2.7 times per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively High | an average of 4.6 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively High | roughly once every 5 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Moderate | an average of 19 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 41 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Moderate | 4.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 875 years |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 11 years |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 51 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 56,137 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 0.2 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 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 St. Joseph 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 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 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 |
| 1795 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-09-23 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 189 | TORNADOES & SEVERE STORMS | DR | Tornado | 1965-04-14 |
Storm Events in Indiana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to St. Joseph 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
180
Total Paid
$1.3M
Avg Per Claim
$7.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Moderate
Score: 85.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Moderate
$60.2M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Cold Wave Relatively High
Hail Relatively High
Strong Wind Relatively High
Tornado Relatively High
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Winter Weather Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Landslide Very Low
Hurricane Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Drought 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 St. Joseph County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Cold Wave carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively High), 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
St. Joseph County's closest FEMA peer: Rockingham County, NH
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for St. Joseph County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Similar modeled NRI score
St. Joseph County: NRI composite 85.8 (Relatively Moderate).
Similar Major-disaster share
St. Joseph County: 9 of 16 of its declarations are Major.
Closest declaration profiles
St. Joseph County shows 16 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
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 St. Joseph County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for St. Joseph 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: 85.8 (Relatively Moderate).
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
St. Joseph County's NFIP claims file (180 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 St. Joseph County?
The most common disaster type in St. Joseph County is Severe Storm, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Snowstorm (4), Biological (2), Flood (2).
How does St. Joseph County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Indiana average?
The typical Indiana county has 17.1 FEMA declaration records; St. Joseph 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 St. Joseph County received?
St. Joseph County has received 9 major disaster declarations, representing 56% of all 16 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has St. Joseph County filed?
St. Joseph County has 180 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $1.3M in payments, with an average of $7.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in St. Joseph County?
No. In St. Joseph County, Cold Wave has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $27.5M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in St. Joseph County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in St. Joseph County was 2005, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for St. Joseph County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, St. Joseph County, Indiana has an overall risk score of 85.8 out of 100 (Relatively Moderate). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Low; on community resilience, Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Moderate, representing $60.2M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to St. Joseph County?
FEMA's NRI data points to St. Joseph County as of the latest release is Cold Wave (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively High) and Strong Wind (Relatively High). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts cold wave here at an average of 3.3 times per year, drawn from 63 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.
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 St. Joseph County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Indiana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events