Costilla County, Colorado: hazard history

FEMA declared 10 disasters that named Costilla County between 1970 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4498 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3436 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• FM-5246 2018 · Fire · Spring Creek Fire
• FM-2646 2006 · Fire · Malo Vega Fire
• EM-3224 2005 · Coastal Storm · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• EM-3185 2003 · Snowstorm · Snow
• DR-1421 2002 · Fire · Wildfires
• EM-3025 1977 · Drought · Drought
• DR-396 1973 · Flood · Flooding & Landslides
• DR-293 1970 · Flood · Heavy Rains & Flooding

Not counted above: 12 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Colorado. 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 Costilla County each year. The busiest year was 1996, with 106 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Wildfire · Jun 27, 2018$32.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 765960
2. Flood · Apr 30, 1999$14.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5694854
3. Flood · Apr 30, 1999$8.6M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5694856
4. Blizzard · Apr 11, 2001$4.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5239264
5. Wildfire · Jul 1, 2013$3.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 458140

Deadliest records

1. Blizzard · Oct 24, 19974 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $300K damage · 2 injuries · NOAA record 5621983
2. Blizzard · Oct 24, 19971 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $200K damage · NOAA record 5621985
3. Heavy Snow · Dec 24, 19971 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5626631
4. Heavy Snow · Feb 18, 19981 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5634826
5. High Wind · Feb 5, 19991 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $30K damage · NOAA record 5689743

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 $10K on 3 claims in Costilla County from 1979 to 2021.

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 Costilla 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 Costilla 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 1,144 records, 17 were filed against this county and 1,127 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: 0% of Colorado'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.