Modoc County, California: hazard history

FEMA declared 17 disasters that named Modoc County between 1964 and 2023.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4699 2023 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Straight-line Winds, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4482 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3428 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4431 2019 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4308 2017 · Flood · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, And Mudslides
• DR-4305 2017 · Flood · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, And Mudslides
• FM-5070 2014 · Fire · Day Fire
• EM-3248 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1155 1996 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, Mud And Landslides
• DR-1046 1995 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding Landslides, Mud Flow

Not counted above: 34 statewide declarations, which covered every county in California. 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. A storm filed against a forecast zone is counted in every county that zone covers, with the whole storm's damage; do not add these figures across counties.

NOAA storm event records in Modoc County each year. The busiest year was 2003, with 31 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · Jan 1, 1997$330.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5590161
2. Flood · May 8, 2005$2.3M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5446645
3. Wildfire · Aug 1, 2014$1.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 528847
4. Flood · Feb 3, 2025$1.0M
   NOAA name: Modoc County · NOAA record 1230683
5. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 6, 2011$20K
   NOAA name: Modoc County · NOAA record 330288

Deadliest records

1. Wildfire · Jul 30, 20151 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 585274

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.

No National Flood Insurance Program claims are on record for Modoc County.

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 1997 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 Modoc 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 against a county and others against an NWS forecast zone, and publishes a code for both. Records are counted as Modoc County by that code — county records by the county's own FIPS code, zone records through the National Weather Service's published list of which counties each zone covers. No name matching is involved. Of 461 records, 30 were filed against this county and 431 against a forecast zone covering it. A zone storm is counted in every county its zone covers, and its damage figure is the whole storm's, not this county's share — NOAA does not publish that split. So these figures describe this county; they must not be added up across counties. Left out: 29% of California's NOAA records, which are marine zones or zones NWS does not map to a county.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.