FEMA Records
11
Low volume
Wisconsin · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Waupaca County, WI
11 FEMA disaster declarations (1973-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Relatively Low. Most common hazard: Flood.
- 11
- FEMA declarations
- 8
- Major disasters
- 68
- NRI risk · Relatively Low
- Flood
- Top hazard
The verdict
Waupaca County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 11 declarations, more than 12% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 11% below the Wisconsin county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county in the riskiest 32%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Riskiest 32%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Relatively Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 11
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 144
- 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 55135 · Waupaca County 11 declarations · rank 2867/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 11
- MAJOR-MID 73%
- RANK-LOWER #2,867
- PHOTO-FINISH Meeker
- NRI-LOW 68
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Flood
- VS-ST-BELOW -11%
Nearest declaration peer: Meeker, MN (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Wisconsin state profile
Waupaca County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Waupaca County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Davis · near 11
Davis · near
11 declarations
- Meeker · near 11
Meeker · near
11 declarations
- Wasatch · near 11
Wasatch · near
11 declarations
- Waupaca · this county 11
Waupaca · this county
11 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Waupaca County carries 11 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2867 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Waupaca County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Waupaca County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Waupaca County
11 12th percentile higher than 12% 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
Waupaca County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Waupaca County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $10.1M 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 Waupaca County's hazard record show?
Reading the federal records together
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 144 paid claims, totaling $1.9M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $13.3K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Wisconsin county averages 12.3 federal declaration records, while Waupaca County has 11. 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.
FEMA National Risk Index
This county carries a high composite score on FEMA's National Risk Index, 67.6/100, rated Relatively Low. Its Expected Annual Loss rating is Relatively Low (roughly $23.8M in annualized losses), and a Relatively Moderate social-vulnerability profile combined with Relatively High community resilience shapes how much of that raw exposure becomes realized harm. 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 6.6 times per year here, based on 125 historical events on record.
52 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Waupaca County, WI · 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
8/30
11 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.5x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
11/25
11 declarations (0.9x state county average of 12)
Major Disaster Share High
18/25
8 of 11 declarations are major disasters (73%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Waupaca County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Waupaca 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
73%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
68
Relatively Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Waupaca 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 6.6 times per year |
| Hail | Relatively Moderate | an average of 2.5 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Moderate | an average of 32 times per year |
| Tornado | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Relatively Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Moderate | an average of 2.7 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 7 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 16 times per year |
| Heat Wave | Relatively Low | 1.5 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 7,071 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 2,674 years |
| Drought | Very Low | 0.4 modeled event-days per year |
| Hurricane | No Rating | roughly once every 270 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Flood 4
Biological 2
Severe Storm 2
Hurricane 1
Tornado 1
Drought 1
What Flood declarations mean here
Flood is the most frequent declaration type on Waupaca County's record, 36% 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 - 8 72.7%
of all 11 declarations
Emergency - 3 27.3%
of all 11 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 2002 | 1 | |
| 2001 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 1 | |
| 1976 | 1 | |
| 1973 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 11 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 11 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4923 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2026-06-30 |
| 4520 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-04-04 |
| 3454 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4459 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES, STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS, AND FLOODING | DR | Flood | 2019-08-27 |
| 3249 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1526 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-06-18 |
| 1432 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES AND FLOODING | DR | Tornado | 2002-09-10 |
| 1369 | FLOODING, SEVERE STORMS AND TORNADOES | DR | Flood | 2001-05-11 |
| 994 | SEVERE STORMS, TORNADOES & FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1993-07-02 |
| 3014 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1976-06-17 |
| 376 | SEVERE STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1973-04-27 |
Storm Events in Wisconsin
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Waupaca County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 3,504 | 5 | 23 | $45.0M |
| Hail | 2,620 | 0 | 0 | $57.8M |
| Winter Weather | 1,939 | 43 | 152 | $2.1M |
| Winter Storm | 1,338 | 15 | 86 | $2.3M |
| Flood | 740 | 12 | 4 | $115.6M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
NFIP Flood Insurance Claims
Total Claims
144
Total Paid
$1.9M
Avg Per Claim
$13.3K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Relatively Low
Score: 67.6/100
Expected Annual Loss
Relatively Low
$23.8M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Moderate
Community Resilience
Relatively High
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Cold Wave Relatively High
Hail Relatively Moderate
Lightning Relatively Moderate
Tornado Relatively Moderate
Riverine Flooding Relatively Low
Strong Wind Relatively Moderate
Landslide Very Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Heat Wave Relatively Low
Ice Storm Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Drought Very Low
Hurricane No Rating
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 Waupaca 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 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
Waupaca County's closest FEMA peer: Oswego County, NY
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Waupaca County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Similar modeled NRI score
Waupaca County: NRI composite 67.6 (Relatively Low).
Similar Major-disaster share
Waupaca County: 8 of 11 of its declarations are Major.
Closest declaration profiles
Waupaca County shows 11 FEMA declarations, led by Flood.
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 Waupaca County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Waupaca 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: 67.6 (Relatively Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 11. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
Waupaca County's NFIP claims file (144 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 Waupaca County?
The most common disaster type in Waupaca County is Flood, with 4 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Severe Storm (2), Hurricane (1).
How does Waupaca County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Wisconsin average?
The typical Wisconsin county has 12.3 FEMA declaration records; Waupaca County has 11, or 11% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 47% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Waupaca County received?
Waupaca County has received 8 major disaster declarations, representing 73% of all 11 disaster declarations.
How many flood insurance claims has Waupaca County filed?
Waupaca County has 144 National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims totaling $1.9M in payments, with an average of $13.3K per claim.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Waupaca County?
No. In Waupaca County, Cold Wave has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively High), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $10.1M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Waupaca County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Waupaca County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1973 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Waupaca County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Waupaca County, Wisconsin has an overall risk score of 67.6 out of 100 (Relatively Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Relatively Moderate and community resilience is Relatively High. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Relatively Low, representing $23.8M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Waupaca County?
FEMA's NRI data points to Waupaca County as of the latest release is Cold Wave (risk rating: Relatively High). Other significant hazards include Hail (Relatively Moderate) and Lightning (Relatively Moderate). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts cold wave here at an average of 6.6 times per year, drawn from 125 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 Waupaca County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Wisconsin profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events