FEMA Records
14
Low volume
Indiana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Tippecanoe County, IN
14 FEMA disaster declarations (1974-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Moderate. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 14
- FEMA declarations
- 9
- Major disasters
- 82
- NRI risk · Relatively Moderate
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Tippecanoe County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 14 declarations, more than 20% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 18% below the Indiana county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 18%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 18%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Moderate
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 14
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 217
- 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 18157 · Tippecanoe County 14 declarations · rank 2522/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-MID · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 14
- MAJOR-MID 64%
- RANK-LOWER #2,522
- PHOTO-FINISH Pulaski
- NRI-MID 82
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -18%
Nearest declaration peer: Pulaski, IL (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Indiana state profile
Tippecanoe County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Tippecanoe County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Franklin (city) · near 14
Franklin (city) · near
14 declarations
- Harris · near 14
Harris · near
14 declarations
- Pulaski · near 14
Pulaski · near
14 declarations
- Tippecanoe · this county 14
Tippecanoe · this county
14 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Tippecanoe County carries 14 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2522 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Tippecanoe County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Tippecanoe County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Tippecanoe County
14 20th percentile higher than 20% 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
Tippecanoe County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Tippecanoe County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $20.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Low), 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 Tippecanoe County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 217 paid claims, totaling $3.2M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $14.9K 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 Tippecanoe County has 14. The gap is 18% 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 81.8/100 (Relatively Moderate). Expected Annual Loss is rated Relatively Low (roughly $49.5M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability reads Relatively Low and community resilience Relatively 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 3.7 times per year here, based on 70 historical events on record.
56 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Tippecanoe 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
10/30
14 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.7x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
14 declarations (0.8x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share High
16/25
9 of 14 declarations are major disasters (64%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
20/20
8 different disaster types declared in Tippecanoe County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Tippecanoe 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
64%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
82
Relatively Moderate
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Tippecanoe 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 3.7 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively High | an average of 9.5 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 3.6 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Moderate | 4.6 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively High | an average of 4.7 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Earthquake | Relatively Low | roughly once every 532 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4.1 times per year |
| Landslide | Relatively Low | roughly once every 9 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 46 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 1 years |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 1.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 37 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 47,910 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
Biological 2
Snowstorm 2
Winter Storm 1
Hurricane 1
Severe Ice Storm 1
Flood 1
Tornado 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Tippecanoe County's record, 36% 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 64.3%
of all 14 declarations
Emergency - 5 35.7%
of all 14 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 2 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2003 | 1 | |
| 1999 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 2 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 14 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 14 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 |
| 1766 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2008-06-08 |
| 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 |
| 1520 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-06-03 |
| 1476 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2003-07-11 |
| 3135 | IN-WINTER STORM 12/23/98 | EM | Snowstorm | 1999-01-15 |
| 899 | SEVERE ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 1991-03-29 |
| 891 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1991-01-05 |
| 423 | TORNADOES | DR | Tornado | 1974-04-04 |
Storm Events in Indiana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Tippecanoe 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
217
Total Paid
$3.2M
Avg Per Claim
$14.9K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Moderate
Score: 81.8/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$49.5M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Cold Wave Relatively High
Winter Weather Relatively High
Hail Relatively Moderate
Heat Wave Relatively Moderate
Strong Wind Relatively High
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Earthquake Relatively Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Moderate
Landslide Relatively Low
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Ice Storm Relatively Moderate
Drought Relatively Low
Hurricane 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 Tippecanoe 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
Tippecanoe County's closest FEMA peer: Anne Arundel County, MD
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Tippecanoe County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Similar modeled NRI score
Tippecanoe County: NRI composite 81.8 (Relatively Moderate).
Similar Major-disaster share
Tippecanoe County: 9 of 14 of its declarations are Major.
Closest declaration profiles
Tippecanoe County shows 14 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 Tippecanoe County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Tippecanoe 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: 81.8 (Relatively Moderate).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 14. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Tippecanoe County's NFIP claims file (217 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 Tippecanoe County?
The most common disaster type in Tippecanoe County is Severe Storm, with 5 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Snowstorm (2), Winter Storm (1).
How does Tippecanoe County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Indiana average?
The typical Indiana county has 17.1 FEMA declaration records; Tippecanoe County has 14, or 18% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 32% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Tippecanoe County received?
Tippecanoe County has received 9 major disaster declarations, representing 64% of all 14 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Tippecanoe County filed?
Tippecanoe County has 217 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $3.2M in payments, with an average of $14.9K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Tippecanoe County?
No. In Tippecanoe County, Cold Wave has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $20.6M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Tippecanoe County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Tippecanoe County was 1991, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1974 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Tippecanoe County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Tippecanoe County, Indiana has an overall risk score of 81.8 out of 100 (Relatively Moderate). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively Low and community resilience is Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $49.5M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Tippecanoe County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Tippecanoe County as of the latest release is Cold Wave (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Winter Weather (Relatively High) and Hail (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts cold wave here at an average of 3.7 times per year, drawn from 70 historical events on record. The underlying methodology weighs historical event frequency against 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 Tippecanoe County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Indiana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events