FEMA Records
28
High volume
Maine · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Waldo County, ME
28 FEMA disaster declarations (1970-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 28
- FEMA declarations
- 22
- Major disasters
- 41
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Waldo County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 28 declarations, more than 81% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 5% below the Maine county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 41%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 41%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 28
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 73
- 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 23027 · Waldo County 28 declarations · rank 543/3,266
DECL-HEAVY · MAJOR-MID · RANK-MID · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-HEAVY 28
- MAJOR-MID 79%
- RANK-MID #543
- PHOTO-FINISH Loíza
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -5%
Nearest declaration peer: Loíza, PR (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Maine state profile
Waldo County among high-volume declaration counties
FEMA declaration records among Waldo County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Hertford · near 28
Hertford · near
28 declarations
- Loíza · near 28
Loíza · near
28 declarations
- Maunabo · near 28
Maunabo · near
28 declarations
- Waldo · this county 28
Waldo · this county
28 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Waldo County carries 28 FEMA declaration records, ranked 543 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Where Waldo County ranks in the national declaration registry
Waldo County vs. high-volume counties in this registry
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Waldo County
28 Top 19% higher than 81% 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
Waldo County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Waldo County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $5.1M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Winter Weather 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 Waldo County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 73 paid claims, totaling $1.5M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $20.7K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Maine county averages 29.4 federal declaration records, while Waldo County has 28. The gap is 5% 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
FEMA's data shows an elevated National Risk Index composite of 40.6/100 for this county (Very Low rating). Expected Annual Loss comes in at Very Low (roughly $13.4M in annualized losses). Social vulnerability (Relatively Low) and community resilience (Very High) both factor into how that raw exposure plays out on the ground. Of the 18 hazards FEMA models, Winter Weather stands out as the sharpest exposure here, rated Relatively High. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at an average of 32 times per year here, based on 572 historical events on record.
70 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Waldo County, ME · 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
20/30
28 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (1.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
12/25
28 declarations (1.0x state county average of 29)
Major Disaster Share Very High
20/25
22 of 28 declarations are major disasters (79%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
18/20
7 different disaster types declared in Waldo County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Waldo 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
79%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
41
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Waldo 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Winter Weather | Relatively High | an average of 32 times per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively High | an average of 1.3 times per year |
| Hurricane | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 11 years |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 15 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 3.3 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Coastal Flooding | Relatively Low | an average of 11 times per year |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 4.2 modeled event-days per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 605 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Hail | Very Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | roughly once every 1 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 1.8 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 91,644 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 35 years |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 12
Flood 8
Hurricane 2
Biological 2
Fishing Losses 2
Coastal Storm 1
Snowstorm 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Waldo County's record, 43% 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 - 22 78.6%
of all 28 declarations
Emergency - 6 21.4%
of all 28 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 2 | |
| 2023 | 3 | |
| 2022 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2018 | 1 | |
| 2009 | 3 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 2 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1998 | 1 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 2 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1987 | 1 | |
Show 4 earlier declaration years
| 1980 | 1 | |
| 1974 | 1 | |
| 1972 | 1 | |
| 1970 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 28 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 28 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4764 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-03-20 |
| 4754 | SEVERE STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-01-30 |
| 3598 | HURRICANE LEE | EM | Hurricane | 2023-09-14 |
| 4719 | SEVERE STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2023-07-06 |
| 4696 | SEVERE STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2023-03-22 |
| 4647 | SEVERE STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Coastal Storm | 2022-03-15 |
| 4522 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-04 |
| 3444 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4354 | SEVERE STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2018-01-02 |
| 1852 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND LANDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-07-30 |
| 1815 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2009-01-09 |
| 3298 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Severe Storm | 2008-12-15 |
| 1755 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2008-05-09 |
| 1693 | SEVERE STORMS AND INLAND AND COASTAL FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-04-25 |
| 1691 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2007-04-20 |
| 3256 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-19 |
| 1591 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, SNOW MELT, AND ICE JAMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-06-29 |
| 1508 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, SNOW MELT AND ICE JAMS | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-02-05 |
| 1198 | SEVERE ICE STORMS, RAINS AND HIGH WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 1998-01-13 |
| 1106 | SEVERE STORMS, ICE JAMS, FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1996-03-13 |
Show 8 earlier declaration records
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 988 | HEAVY RAIN, SNOWMELT, ICE JAMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1993-05-11 |
| 3099 | BLIZZARDS, SEVERE WINDS & SNOWFALL, COASTAL STORM | EM | Snowstorm | 1993-03-15 |
| 940 | HEAVY RAINS, ICE JAMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1992-03-27 |
| 788 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1987-04-09 |
| 3082 | RED TIDE-TOXIC ALGAE | EM | Fishing Losses | 1980-09-20 |
| 410 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1974-01-18 |
| 356 | TOXIC ALGAE IN COASTAL WATERS | DR | Fishing Losses | 1972-09-28 |
| 284 | SEVERE STORMS, ICE JAMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1970-02-27 |
Storm Events in Maine
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Waldo County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 972 | 3 | 0 | $821.0K |
| Heavy Snow | 817 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Winter Storm | 672 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Winter Weather | 540 | 0 | 52 | $0 |
| High Wind | 261 | 3 | 0 | $40.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
73
Total Paid
$1.5M
Avg Per Claim
$20.7K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 40.6/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$13.4M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Winter Weather Relatively High
Ice Storm Relatively High
Hurricane Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Coastal Flooding Relatively Low
Drought Relatively Low
Earthquake Very Low
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Hail Very Low
Strong Wind Relatively Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Avalanche 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: Winter Weather
Winter Weather in the model means the accumulation of snow and cold that disrupts rather than destroys: road closures, roof loads, burst pipes and lost heating. Its costs land heavily on transport and on households least able to absorb an interruption.
Worth noting for Waldo County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Winter Weather 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
Waldo County's closest FEMA peer: San Luis Obispo County, CA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Waldo County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Waldo County shows 28 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Waldo County: 22 of 28 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Waldo County: NRI composite 40.6 (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 Waldo County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Waldo 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: 40.6 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 28. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Waldo County's NFIP claims file (73 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 Waldo County?
The most common disaster type in Waldo County is Severe Storm, with 12 declarations. Other disaster types include Flood (8), Hurricane (2), Biological (2).
How does Waldo County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Maine average?
The typical Maine county has 29.4 FEMA declaration records; Waldo County has 28, or 5% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 35% higher. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Waldo County received?
Waldo County has received 22 major disaster declarations, representing 79% of all 28 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Waldo County filed?
Waldo County has 73 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $1.5M in payments, with an average of $20.7K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Waldo County?
No. In Waldo County, Winter Weather has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $5.1M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Waldo County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Waldo County was 2009, with 3 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1970 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Waldo County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Waldo County, Maine has an overall risk score of 40.6 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively Low and community resilience is Very High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $13.4M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Waldo County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Waldo County is Winter Weather (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Ice Storm (Relatively High) and Hurricane (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts winter weather here at an average of 32 times per year, drawn from 572 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 Waldo County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Maine profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events