FEMA Records
12
Low volume
Ohio · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
12 FEMA disaster declarations (1978-2020), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
The verdict
Wyandot County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 12 declarations, more than 14% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 18% below the Ohio county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 17%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
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.
Wyandot County vs. all counties in this dataset
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time
12 14th percentile higher than 14% 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 · 2026-08-03
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Wyandot County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $4.6M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively Moderate), while Ice Storm 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.
The NFIP claims register shows a middle-volume loss record here: 127 paid claims, totaling $2.5M. PlainHazard uses 50-499 claims for this descriptive band; FEMA does not publish it as a safety or coverage category. The $19.5K average describes payments on recorded claims only, leaving uninsured damage and properties without a claim outside the measure.
Start with the state benchmark: a Ohio county averages 14.6 federal declaration records, while Wyandot County has 12. 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.
Nationally, Wyandot County's 12 FEMA records form a high-volume history; within Ohio, however, the count is 18% below the county mean. 6 entries carry the Major Disaster classification. The largest incident group is Severe Storm, appearing 6 times. The full 42-year record averages 0.3 declarations annually. A DR label alone does not say whether Individual Assistance, Public Assistance, or both followed.
This county's FEMA National Risk Index composite lands at 17.4/100 (Very Low), a modest reading against the rest of the country. Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $8.5M in annualized losses), tempered or compounded by a Very Low social-vulnerability score and Very High community-resilience score. Among the 18 modeled hazards, Ice Storm carries the county's highest rating, a mid-range Relatively Moderate. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 2 years here, based on 34 historical events on record.
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Wyandot County, OH · 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
12 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.6x national county average)
12 declarations (0.8x state county average of 15)
6 of 12 declarations are major disasters (50%)
4 different disaster types declared in Wyandot County
Activity Band
High
vs. Ohio Avg
-18%
State avg: 14.6
vs. National Avg
-42%
National avg: 20.7
Avg Per Year
0.3
Over 42 years
Each axis: NRI risk rating (Very Low-Very High) on a 0-100 scale. Rounder = broad exposure; spiky = one or two hazards dominate.
FEMA Records
12
Low volume
Major Disaster share
50%
Major-heavy
NRI risk score
17
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Storm | Relatively Moderate | roughly once every 2 years |
| Hail | Relatively Low | an average of 3.4 times per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 41 times per year |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 770 years |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 9.4 times per year |
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 58 years |
| Tornado | Relatively Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Strong Wind | Relatively Low | an average of 2.7 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 13 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 4.4 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 3 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 29,470 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Wyandot County's record, 50% 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.
FEMA categorizes declarations as Major Disasters (DR), Emergencies (EM), or Fire Management Assistance (FM).
of all 12 declarations
of all 12 declarations
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2012 | 2 | |
| 2008 | 1 | |
| 2007 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 3 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1981 | 1 | |
| 1978 | 1 | |
How the 12 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 12 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4507 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-31 |
| 3457 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4077 | SEVERE STORMS AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Severe Storm | 2012-08-20 |
| 3346 | SEVERE STORMS | EM | Severe Storm | 2012-06-30 |
| 3286 | RECORD SNOW AND NEAR RECORD SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2008-04-24 |
| 1720 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, AND TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 2007-08-27 |
| 3250 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1580 | SEVERE WINTER STORMS, FLOODING, AND MUDSLIDES | DR | Severe Storm | 2005-02-15 |
| 3198 | SNOW | EM | Snowstorm | 2005-01-11 |
| 1556 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2004-09-19 |
| 642 | SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING & TORNADOES | DR | Severe Storm | 1981-06-30 |
| 3055 | BLIZZARDS & SNOWSTORMS | EM | Snowstorm | 1978-01-26 |
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Wyandot County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 6,938 | 6 | 39 | $60.4M |
| Winter Weather | 2,101 | 7 | 42 | $3.3M |
| Hail | 1,749 | 0 | 0 | $673.5K |
| Flood | 1,607 | 9 | 0 | $84.5M |
| Flash Flood | 1,089 | 9 | 7 | $112.2M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
Total Claims
127
Total Paid
$2.5M
Avg Per Claim
$19.5K
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) OpenFEMA Claims Data
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 17.4/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$8.5M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Very High
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Ratings reflect relative scores among all US counties. Data: hazards.fema.gov/nri
Ice storms load power lines and tree limbs with accumulating freezing rain until they fail. The characteristic cost is infrastructure and multi-day power loss across a wide area rather than structural damage to buildings, which is why their consequences often outlast the weather that caused them.
Worth noting for Wyandot County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Ice Storm carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Moderate), 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
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Wyandot County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Wyandot County shows 12 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Wyandot County: 6 of 12 of its declarations are Major.
Wyandot County: NRI composite 17.4 (Very Low).
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 Wyandot County - capture-dated entries only.
Understanding disaster data
Wyandot County's NFIP claims file (127 claims) and FEMA declaration history measure different federal records - this guide separates them from modeled NRI risk.
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.
What this means for Wyandot County
Against a Ohio county mean of 15 declarations, Wyandot County, OH records 12, or 18% fewer. PlainHazard classifies that historical total as high activity.
A below-average federal record is not a safety guarantee. Use National Weather Service alerts and local emergency-management notices for present conditions, not this historical comparison.
PlainHazard derives this profile from FEMA's Disaster Declarations Summaries and National Risk Index data. The declaration comparison covers 3,266 U.S. counties and county equivalents in this database, refreshed as of 2026-08-03. Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Verify with FEMA → · Verify with FEMA NRI → · Verify with NOAA →
Every figure on PlainHazard is rendered directly from FEMA federal disaster data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or national statistics report, the data & editorial changelog, or report a data error.