Douglas County, Colorado: hazard history

FEMA declared 13 disasters that named Douglas County between 1965 and 2023.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4731 2023 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, And Tornadoes
• EM-3436 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4498 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3270 2006 · Snowstorm · Snow
• EM-3224 2005 · Coastal Storm · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• FM-2510 2003 · Fire · Co - Cherokee Ranch Wildfire - 10/29/2003
• EM-3185 2003 · Snowstorm · Snow
• FM-2407 2002 · Fire · Co - Schoonover Fire - 05/23/02
• DR-1421 2002 · Fire · Wildfires
• EM-3025 1977 · Drought · Drought

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 Douglas County each year. The busiest year was 2023, with 74 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Blizzard · Mar 17, 2003$15.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 2 injuries · NOAA record 5346831
2. Blizzard · Mar 17, 2003$15.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5346834
3. Winter Storm · Mar 17, 2003$15.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5346839
4. High Wind · Apr 9, 1999$13.8M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5690568
5. Flash Flood · Jul 7, 2006$13.3M
   NOAA name: Douglas County · NOAA record 5525061

Deadliest records

1. Cold/Wind Chill · Dec 18, 19983 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 15 injuries · NOAA record 5676985
2. Wildfire · Mar 26, 20123 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $11.0M damage · NOAA record 372236
3. Blizzard · Dec 20, 20062 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 2280
4. Cold/Wind Chill · Dec 18, 19961 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5577841
5. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 8, 19971 death
   NOAA name: Douglas County · 2 injuries · NOAA record 5607182

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 $661K on 69 claims in Douglas County from 1979 to 2023.

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 Douglas 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 Douglas 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 1,429 records, 498 were filed against this county and 931 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.