Baldwin County, Alabama: hazard history

FEMA declared 38 disasters that named Baldwin County between 1969 and 2024.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3618 2024 · Hurricane · Hurricane Helene
• EM-3545 2020 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sally
• DR-4563 2020 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sally
• DR-4503 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3472 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• EM-3407 2018 · Hurricane · Hurricane Michael
• EM-3394 2017 · Hurricane · Hurricane Nate
• DR-4349 2017 · Hurricane · Hurricane Nate
• EM-3389 2017 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irma
• DR-4176 2014 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Tornadoes, Straight-line Winds, And Flooding

Not counted above: 3 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Alabama. A declaration is a decision to send federal help, not a measure of how bad an event was. Records run from 1953. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.

Records start in 1996. Damage is NOAA's estimate at the time, in nominal dollars, and is often rounded; it is not insurance claims data. A storm that crossed two NOAA zones in this county is recorded, and counted, once per zone.

NOAA storm event records in Baldwin County each year. The busiest year was 2023, with 47 records.

Years with no record are left out of the table, not shown as zero.

Costliest records

1. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Sep 15, 2020$234.5M
   NOAA name: BALDWIN COASTAL · 2 deaths · NOAA record 921108
2. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Sep 25, 1998$82.0M
   NOAA name: LOWER BALDWIN · NOAA record 5673190
3. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Jul 18, 1997$60.5M
   NOAA name: LOWER BALDWIN · 1 death · NOAA record 5607438
4. Flash Flood · Apr 29, 2014$27.0M
   NOAA name: BALDWIN · 1 death · 1 injury · NOAA record 516848
5. High Surf · Nov 9, 2009$8.0M
   NOAA name: LOWER BALDWIN · NOAA record 204002

Deadliest records

1. Rip Current · Jun 9, 20133 deaths
   NOAA name: LOWER BALDWIN · NOAA record 445551
2. Lightning · Jul 23, 20052 deaths
   NOAA name: BALDWIN · NOAA record 5463631
3. Rip Current · Jul 2, 20102 deaths
   NOAA name: LOWER BALDWIN · NOAA record 254289
4. Rip Current · Aug 11, 20172 deaths
   NOAA name: BALDWIN COASTAL · NOAA record 719442
5. Rip Current · Oct 9, 20172 deaths
   NOAA name: BALDWIN COASTAL · NOAA record 724136

Each line is one NOAA record, linked to its page at NOAA. One large storm can appear more than once if NOAA recorded it in several zones of this county. Dollars are nominal.

The National Flood Insurance Program paid $663.8M on 19,733 claims in Baldwin County from 1978 to 2024.

A count of claims, not a rate: NFIP publishes no count of insured homes beside it, and most flood damage is uninsured. Nominal dollars. Records run from 1978 to 2024; claims filed without a county code are not on any county page. Source: FEMA OpenFEMA FIMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

A hazard vulnerability analysis rates each hazard for probability, impact, preparedness and response. Probability is the one column the county’s federal record can fill — NCEI storm events from 1996 to 2026 and FEMA declarations naming the county — and this is what it says for a facility here, on the 0–3 scale of the all-hazards structure surveyors expect. The other six columns are the facility’s own judgment about its building, and Calchis leaves them blank.

A dash means the record does not speak to that hazard; it is not a zero. Whether a finished document satisfies the CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule is the facility’s finding and its surveyor’s. Complete the HVA for a facility in Baldwin County — the technological, human and hazardous-materials rows, the six facility columns, the approval and the printed document — or read the sample analysis on that page first.

• Every figure is counted from public federal records held by Calchis: NOAA NCEI Storm Events, FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations, and FEMA NFIP claims. Nothing is modeled or estimated.
• NOAA files some events by county and others by forecast zone, and names both. Records are counted as Baldwin County when their NOAA name is this county's name, alone or with a word like “Coastal” or “Inland” in front. The county codes NOAA also publishes have not been loaded for Alabama yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: BALDWIN, BALDWIN CENTRAL, BALDWIN COASTAL, BALDWIN INLAND, LOWER BALDWIN, UPPER BALDWIN. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 0% of Alabama's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.