Federal Disaster Declarations

Preparing the disaster record…

1953–2026

Play the record year by year.

Tiles © Esri

Loading The Disaster Record

Reading seventy years of federal declarations…

Filtered Record Declaration Details
Preparing declarations…

Choose a declaration to filter the map and fit its footprint · largest footprint first

Page 1
Number
Preparing declarations…
Declaration Guide

What A Federal Disaster Declaration Means

This tool lives at disasters.jbf.com.

This map is not about weather. It is about response. A column rises over a county when the federal government formally declared a disaster there, which is the moment federal money and help become available. A quiet county may still have had storms; it did not have declarations.

HeightHow Often?

The number of separate declarations that covered this place.

ColorSame Measure

Colour and height carry one measure, so the pattern reads at a glance.

TimeWhen?

Play the timeline to watch the record build from 1953.

Three Kinds

Not Every Declaration Is The Same

  • Major disaster (DR) — the largest kind, opening the widest range of federal assistance.
  • Emergency (EM) — a narrower, faster declaration, often for immediate protective work or sheltering.
  • Fire management (FM) — for fires threatening such destruction that they would become a major disaster.

A single event produces many declarations. A FEMA disaster number belongs to one state, so Hurricane Katrina appears as 52 separate declarations, not one. Counting declarations counts state-level responses, which is the honest unit.

Reading The Record

Three Things That Would Mislead You

  • 2020 is COVID-19. Every "Biological" declaration is the pandemic, and it reached almost every county in the country. Left in a cumulative view it buries every other hazard, so this map leaves it out until you switch it on.
  • Winter changed its name. "Winter Storm" only appears from 2022; the same weather was filed before that as "Snowstorm" or "Severe Ice Storm". The guided winter view groups all of them so the series stays continuous.
  • Drought stops in 2007. FEMA changed how drought is handled. The hazard did not go away.

Declarations also reflect policy and politics, not only damage. A rising count over seventy years partly reflects a widening federal role in disaster response.

About The Data
Record
1953–2026
Declarations
Pending
Hazard Types
Pending
Counties Ever Declared
Pending

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA DisasterDeclarationsSummaries. County boundaries and population from the Red Cross county spine.

Official References FEMA: How A Disaster Gets Declared OpenFEMA: Disaster Declarations Summaries
Was This Helpful?
Keys Only

Map Keys

Move The Map

←↑↓→Move +−Zoom Shift←→Rotate Shift↑↓Tilt / Oblique DragRotate And Tilt ShiftDragMove