FEMA disaster type · OpenFEMA declarations
Human Cause disasters in the United States
FEMA disaster declarations classified as "Human Cause" from 1980 to 1995 - which states are hit most often and how the count has changed over time.
- 4
- FEMA declarations
- 3
- States affected
- 1980
- Earliest year
- 1995
- Latest year
The verdict
According to FEMA's disaster declaration history, human cause ranks #23 of the 27 distinct disaster types the agency has declared, accounting for 0.1% of all 5,218 declarations on record. It is rarer than 85% of the other declaration types FEMA tracks, based on total historical volume.
- #23 of 27
- FEMA disaster types, by declaration volume
- 0.1%
- share of all 5,218 FEMA declarations
- 4
- human cause declarations, 1980–1995
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 Human Cause compare?
Human Cause vs. every FEMA declaration type
Declaration volume across all tracked incident types
4 15th percentile higher than 15% of 27 disaster types
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 human cause record?
States with the most human cause declarations
Wider bars = more FEMA declarations of this type
- Oklahoma
Oklahoma
2 declarations
- Florida
Florida
1 declarations
- New York
New York
1 declarations
What this shows Oklahoma leads with 2 human cause declarations among the states shown.
Human Cause declarations by year
Federal declaration cadence for this incident type across the OpenFEMA record.
Peak year in this series: 1995 (2 declarations). A declaration is a federal assistance trigger, not a raw event count.
How common are Human Cause disasters in the U.S.?
With so few declarations on record, the year-by-year pattern is necessarily sparse. The peak year on record was 1995, with 2 human cause 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 1995, with 2 declarations. Trends over the 15+ year history reflect how infrequently this disaster type crosses the federal declaration threshold at all.
FEMA has issued 4 federal disaster declarations classified as human cause between 1980 and 1995, affecting 3 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.
This disaster type's footprint is thin and scattered across the map. The three states with the most human cause declarations on record are OK (2 declarations), FL (1 declarations), NY (1 declarations), consistent with how narrowly this hazard type is geographically concentrated.
What is actually in FEMA's human cause file?
The complete OpenFEMA record is small enough to inspect title by title: 4 declaration rows resolve to 3 named records. A row is a federal administrative action, not necessarily a separate physical event.
- EXPLOSION AT FEDERAL COURTHOUSE IN OKLAHOMA CITY: Oklahoma; Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM); 1995-04-26, 1995-04-19. OpenFEMA carries 2 declaration rows under this title.
- EXPLOSION AT WORLD TRADE CENTER: New York; Major Disaster (DR); 1993-04-02.
- UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS: Florida; Emergency (EM); 1980-05-06.
The repeated EXPLOSION AT FEDERAL COURTHOUSE IN OKLAHOMA CITY title shows why declaration totals should not be read as a literal incident count.
Which federal declaration does human cause actually get?
With only 4 declarations on record, this type is too thin to express as a reliable percentage split, so the raw breakdown is: 2 Emergency (EM), 2 Major Disaster (DR). Each federal instrument carries different assistance: a Major Disaster declaration can unlock Individual Assistance and Hazard Mitigation funding, an Emergency declaration is narrower and faster, and Fire Management Assistance covers firefighting costs during an active incident.
Declarations by State
Declarations by Year
| Year | Declarations |
|---|---|
| 1995 | 2 |
| 1993 | 1 |
| 1980 | 1 |
Recent Human Cause Declarations
Download all 4 declarations as CSV . Source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0. The table below lists the 4 most recent; the file carries every one.
| DR# | Title | State | Type | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1048 | EXPLOSION AT FEDERAL COURTHOUSE IN OKLAHOMA CITY | OK | DR | 1995-04-26 |
| 3115 | EXPLOSION AT FEDERAL COURTHOUSE IN OKLAHOMA CITY | OK | EM | 1995-04-19 |
| 984 | EXPLOSION AT WORLD TRADE CENTER | NY | DR | 1993-04-02 |
| 3079 | UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS | FL | EM | 1980-05-06 |
What this means for Human Cause declarations
Human Cause is rarer than 85% of the other declaration types FEMA tracks, with 4 FEMA declaration records; Oklahoma leads with 2.
- Oklahoma accounts for the largest share of human cause declarations in this corpus. Oklahoma profile
- See how states compare on raw FEMA declaration volume across all incident types. Most disasters ranking
- Learn what a FEMA declaration does and does not measure relative to NOAA storm events. Disaster-data guide
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.
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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
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.