FEMA Records
14
Low volume
Minnesota · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Waseca County, MN
14 FEMA disaster declarations (1965-2024), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 14
- FEMA declarations
- 12
- Major disasters
- 25
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Waseca 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 21% below the Minnesota county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 25%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 25%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 14
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 9
- 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 27161 · Waseca County 14 declarations · rank 2507/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-HEAVY · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 14
- MAJOR-HEAVY 86%
- RANK-LOWER #2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH Pulaski
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -21%
Nearest declaration peer: Pulaski, IL (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Minnesota state profile
Waseca County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Waseca 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
- Waseca · this county 14
Waseca · this county
14 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Waseca County carries 14 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2507 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Waseca County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Waseca County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Waseca 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
Waseca County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Waseca County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $3.1M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Drought 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 Waseca County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 24.7/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $9.0M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Relatively Low social-vulnerability score and Very High community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Drought carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at 13 modeled event-days per year here, based on 343 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
This county has a small entry in FEMA's NFIP paid-claims table: 9 claims and $111.2K paid in total. PlainHazard calls 1-49 claims a light registry record, a label for this dataset rather than a finding that flood exposure is low. A short claims history can also reflect insurance take-up, the period covered, or losses that were never insured.
Start with the state benchmark: a Minnesota county averages 17.7 federal declaration records, while Waseca County has 14. The gap is 21% 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.
54 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Waseca County, MN · 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 18)
Major Disaster Share Very High
21/25
12 of 14 declarations are major disasters (86%)
Hazard Diversity High
13/20
5 different disaster types declared in Waseca County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Waseca 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
86%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
25
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Waseca 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drought | Relatively Moderate | 13 modeled event-days per year |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 4 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 5 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 10 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 21 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 17 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 4.9 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 10,122 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,809 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 39 times per year |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 6
Severe Storm 4
Biological 2
Hurricane 1
Severe Ice Storm 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Waseca County's record, 43% of its declarations. Federal flood declarations cover two mechanisms that behave very differently: riverine flooding, which builds over days as a watershed drains and is usually forecast well in advance, and flash flooding, which can arrive in under an hour from rainfall that fell somewhere upstream.
Flood is also the one hazard class where a second federal dataset exists for the same events. The National Flood Insurance Program records what was actually paid on insured losses, so it measures a narrower thing than the declaration count: uninsured damage, and flooding outside mapped special flood hazard areas, never enters it. Reading the two together is more informative than either alone.
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 - 12 85.7%
of all 14 declarations
Emergency - 2 14.3%
of all 14 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2017 | 1 | |
| 2014 | 1 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 2 | |
| 1996 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 1 | |
| 1965 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4797 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2024-06-28 |
| 4531 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-07 |
| 3453 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4442 | SEVERE WINTER STORM, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-06-12 |
| 4290 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2016-11-02 |
| 4182 | SEVERE STORMS, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Flood | 2014-07-21 |
| 1941 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2010-10-13 |
| 3242 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1158 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-16 |
| 1151 | SEVERE ICE STORM | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-01-07 |
| 1116 | FLOODING AND SEVERE STORMS | DR | Flood | 1996-06-01 |
| 993 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-06-11 |
| 929 | ICE STORM | DR | Severe Ice Storm | 1991-12-26 |
| 188 | FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1965-04-11 |
Storm Events in Minnesota
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Waseca County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 4,420 | 13 | 25 | $68.2M |
| Hail | 4,203 | 0 | 0 | $34.5M |
| Extreme Cold/Wind Chill | 1,789 | 7 | 4 | $55.0K |
| Winter Storm | 1,695 | 2 | 17 | $10.0M |
| Heavy Snow | 1,190 | 9 | 14 | $1.0M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
9
Total Paid
$111.2K
Avg Per Claim
$12.4K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 24.7/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$9.0M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Drought Relatively Moderate
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Hail Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Tornado Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Wildfire Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Lightning 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: Drought
Drought is the slowest of the modeled hazards and the least visible: it does its damage to agriculture, water supply and soil over seasons rather than hours, so it rarely produces the kind of single-day damage that drives a disaster declaration. FEMA scores it in event-days per year rather than discrete events for exactly that reason.
Worth noting for Waseca County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Drought carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), while the county's declaration history is led by Flood. 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
Waseca County's closest FEMA peer: Pulaski County, IL
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Waseca County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Waseca County shows 14 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
Similar Major-disaster share
Waseca County: 12 of 14 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Waseca County: NRI composite 24.7 (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 Waseca County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Waseca 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: 24.7 (Very Low).
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
Most disaster-prone counties
With 14 FEMA declarations, Waseca 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 Waseca County?
The most common disaster type in Waseca County is Flood, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Severe Storm (4), Biological (2), Hurricane (1).
How does Waseca County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Minnesota average?
The typical Minnesota county has 17.7 FEMA declaration records; Waseca County has 14, or 21% 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 Waseca County received?
Waseca County has received 12 major disaster declarations, representing 86% of all 14 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Waseca County filed?
Waseca County has 9 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $111.2K in payments, with an average of $12.4K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Waseca County?
No. In Waseca County, Drought has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Moderate), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $3.1M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Waseca County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Waseca County was 1997, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1965 to 2024.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Waseca County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Waseca County, Minnesota has an overall risk score of 24.7 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 $9.0M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Waseca County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Waseca County is Drought (risk rating: Relatively Moderate). Other significant hazards include Strong Wind (Relatively Moderate) and Hail (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts drought here at 13 modeled event-days per year, drawn from 343 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 Waseca County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Minnesota profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events