Every time a disaster is too big for a state to handle alone, the governor can ask the President for a federal declaration. FEMA keeps a record of every one since 1953, along with the counties each declaration covered.
Counting those records county by county shows which places have needed federal help most often. The typical US county has been included in 18 declarations for natural events. A few have been included in more than 50.
The top 15
| Rank | County | Declarations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Los Angeles County, CA | 86 |
| 2 | Riverside County, CA | 64 |
| 3 | San Bernardino County, CA | 59 |
| 4 | Ascension Parish, LA | 55 |
| 5 | Washoe County, NV | 52 |
| 6 | Collier County, FL | 52 |
| 7 | Ventura County, CA | 51 |
| 8 | Lafourche Parish, LA | 51 |
| 9 | Chelan County, WA | 51 |
| 10 | St. Martin Parish, LA | 51 |
| 11 | Terrebonne Parish, LA | 50 |
| 12 | San Diego County, CA | 49 |
| 13 | Oklahoma County, OK | 49 |
| 14 | Bay County, FL | 49 |
| 15 | Livingston Parish, LA | 49 |
Counts include major disaster, emergency and fire management declarations for natural events, such as storms, floods, fires and earthquakes. They exclude non-natural events and the COVID-19 declarations. Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries, to November 2026.
Why Southern California leads
Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties appear high on the list mainly because of wildfires. FEMA fire management declarations help states fight large fires that threaten homes, and Southern California has many of them. These counties also have records of floods, mudslides and earthquakes, including the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Chelan County in Washington and Washoe County in Nevada are also on the list largely because of wildfire.
Why Louisiana parishes appear so often
Five Louisiana parishes make the top 15. South Louisiana sits low, close to the Gulf of Mexico, and is crossed by rivers and bayous. Hurricanes, tropical storms and floods have led to repeated declarations, from Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to Katrina and Rita in 2005, Ida in 2021 and others since.
Which large counties have the fewest?
Among counties with more than 500,000 people, the fewest declarations are in San Francisco County, California; Denver County, Colorado; and Bernalillo County, New Mexico, each with 9. Salt Lake County, Utah, and Multnomah County, Oregon, have 10 each.
A low count does not mean a place is free of risk. San Francisco, for example, has some of the highest earthquake risk in the country. It simply has not had many events that needed federal help since 1953.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a major disaster and an emergency declaration? A major disaster declaration opens the full range of federal help, including grants to households and money to rebuild public facilities. An emergency declaration is narrower and usually covers urgent work such as evacuations and debris removal. Read more in our guide to what a FEMA disaster declaration pays for.
Are declarations a good measure of risk? They are one measure. They show where damage was big enough to need federal help, which depends partly on population and politics. FEMA’s National Risk Index, shown on every county page, estimates long-run risk directly.
Where can I see my county’s history? Every county page on this site lists all its federal declarations, newest first, with a chart by decade.