PlainHazard

FEMA disaster type · OpenFEMA declarations

Earthquake disasters in the United States

FEMA disaster declarations classified as "Earthquake" from 1954 to 2023 - which states are hit most often and how the count has changed over time.

36
FEMA declarations
14
States affected
1954
Earliest year
2023
Latest year

The verdict

According to FEMA's disaster declaration history, earthquake ranks #13 of the 27 distinct disaster types the agency has declared, accounting for 0.7% of all 5,218 declarations on record. It is declared more often than 54% of the other declaration types FEMA tracks, based on total historical volume.

#13 of 27
FEMA disaster types, by declaration volume
0.7%
share of all 5,218 FEMA declarations
36
earthquake declarations, 1954–2023

Ranking reflects the count of Presidentially declared federal disasters per OpenFEMA, not event severity or economic loss; a rare declaration type can still be individually catastrophic.

How does Earthquake compare?

Earthquake vs. every FEMA declaration type

Declaration volume across all tracked incident types

36 Top 48% higher than 52% of 27 disaster types

This type 0 1.8K all FEMA disaster types in this corpus, bucketed by value

Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more disaster types. 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 OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 · 2026-08-03

What shapes the earthquake record?

States with the most earthquake declarations

Wider bars = more FEMA declarations of this type

declarations

What this shows California leads with 14 earthquake declarations among the states shown.

Source FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 As of 2026-08-03

Earthquake declarations by year

Federal declaration cadence for this incident type across the OpenFEMA record.

0.511.522.533.5 19541971198319922001200720142023 1
OpenFEMA earthquake declaration counts by year. Focus a year mark for its exact count.

Peak year in this series: 2019 (3 declarations). A declaration is a federal assistance trigger, not a raw event count.

How common are Earthquake disasters in the U.S.?

FEMA has issued 36 federal disaster declarations classified as earthquake between 1954 and 2023, affecting 14 states and territories. Each declaration represents a formal federal recognition that an event exceeded state and local response capacity, unlocking Public Assistance, Individual Assistance, or Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding depending on the declaration class (DR, EM, or FM). Raw declaration counts therefore measure the federal response footprint, which is a lagging and thresholded indicator: smaller events handled entirely at the state level never appear, and declaration thresholds have been recalibrated over the dataset's multi-decade history.

Annual declaration counts move in fits and starts rather than a smooth trend. The peak year on record was 2019, with 3 earthquake declarations issued that single year, a clustering driven by major multi-state events and the federal government's declaration cadence. The most recent year on record is 2023, with 1 declarations. Trends over the 69+ year history reflect a mix of policy recalibration and genuine year-to-year hazard variability.

Where these declarations land varies widely by state. The three states with the most earthquake declarations on record are CA (14 declarations), AK (4 declarations), HI (4 declarations), largely explained by regional exposure rather than population size alone. States with the fewest declarations, including NY (1), UT (1), VA (1), a sign that most local events here never crossed the federal declaration threshold.

Which federal declaration does earthquake actually get?

This is a conventional Major Disaster type: 92% of its 36 declarations are DRs, with 8% filed as Emergencies. A DR is the instrument that opens the widest set of programs -- Public Assistance for damaged infrastructure, Individual Assistance for households, and Hazard Mitigation funding intended to reduce the next event's cost. The concentration means these events are typically declared after damage has been assessed, not while they are still developing.

Declarations by State

# State Declarations
1 California CA 14
2 Alaska AK 4
3 Hawaii HI 4
4 Oregon OR 2
5 Puerto Rico PR 2
6 Washington WA 2
7 American Samoa AS 1
8 District of Columbia DC 1
9 Guam GU 1
10 Idaho ID 1
11 Nevada NV 1
12 New York NY 1
13 Utah UT 1
14 Virginia VA 1

Declarations by Year

Year Declarations
2023 1
2020 3
2019 3
2014 1
2012 2
2010 1
2009 1
2007 1
2004 1
2003 1
2002 2
2001 1
2000 1
1994 2
1993 1
1992 2
1990 1
1988 1
1984 1
1983 1
1980 1
1976 1
1973 1
1971 1
1965 1
1964 1
1960 1
1954 1

Recent Earthquake Declarations

Download all 36 declarations as CSV . Source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0. The table below lists the 30 most recent; the file carries every one.

DR# Title State Type Date
4692 EARTHQUAKE CA DR 2023-03-08
4548 EARTHQUAKE AND AFTERSHOCKS UT DR 2020-07-09
4473 EARTHQUAKES PR DR 2020-01-16
3426 EARTHQUAKES PR EM 2020-01-07
3415 EARTHQUAKES CA EM 2019-07-08
4413 EARTHQUAKE AK DR 2019-01-31
3410 EARTHQUAKE AK EM 2018-11-30
4193 EARTHQUAKE CA DR 2014-09-11
4044 EARTHQUAKE DC DR 2011-11-08
4042 EARTHQUAKE VA DR 2011-11-04
1911 EARTHQUAKE CA DR 2010-05-07
1859 EARTHQUAKE,TSUNAMI, AND FLOODING AS DR 2009-09-29
1664 EARTHQUAKE HI DR 2006-10-17
1505 EARTHQUAKE CA DR 2004-01-13
1440 EARTHQUAKE AK DR 2002-11-08
1415 EARTHQUAKE NY DR 2002-05-16
1397 EARTHQUAKE GU DR 2001-12-05
1361 EARTHQUAKE WA DR 2001-03-01
1342 EARTHQUAKE CA DR 2000-09-14
1008 NORTHRIDGE EARTHQUAKE CA DR 1994-01-17
1004 EARTHQUAKES OR DR 1993-10-15
985 EARTHQUAKE OR DR 1993-04-26
947 EARTHQUAKE & AFTERSHOCKS CA DR 1992-07-02
943 EARTHQUAKE & AFTERSHOCKS CA DR 1992-05-04
845 LOMA PRIETA EARTHQUAKE CA DR 1989-10-18
799 EARTHQUAKE & AFTERSHOCKS CA DR 1987-10-07
694 EARTHQUAKE ID DR 1983-11-18
682 COALINGA EARTHQUAKE CA DR 1983-05-05
609 EARTHQUAKE CA DR 1979-10-19
490 EARTHQUAKE, SEISMIC WAVES & VOLCANIC ERUPTION HI DR 1975-12-07

What this means for Earthquake declarations

Earthquake is declared more often than 54% of the other declaration types FEMA tracks, with 36 FEMA declaration records; California leads with 14.

A federal declaration is a legal assistance trigger, not a count of every storm event or a forecast. For current threats follow the National Weather Service and local officials; in an emergency call 911.

Related Guides

Preparing for Natural Disasters

Essential steps to prepare your household for common natural hazards.

Understanding Disaster Data

How to interpret FEMA declarations, storm events, and risk scores.

Climate Change & Disasters

How climate trends are changing the frequency and severity of natural disasters.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 For informational purposes only

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Related

Browse all → | Rankings →

Verify declarations with FEMA → Verify storm-event context 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.