Pitkin County, Colorado: hazard history

FEMA declared 6 disasters that named Pitkin County between 1977 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3436 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4498 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3224 2005 · Coastal Storm · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1421 2002 · Fire · Wildfires
• DR-719 1984 · Flood · Severe Storms, Mudslides, Landslides & Flooding
• 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 Pitkin County each year. The busiest year was 2013, with 81 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Wildfire · Aug 1, 2018$3.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 778578
2. Wildfire · Sep 1, 2018$3.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 778579
3. Wildfire · Oct 1, 2018$3.5M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 778580
4. Flood · Jun 1, 2003$3.2M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5366759
5. Wildfire · Jul 3, 2018$3.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 778577

Deadliest records

1. Avalanche · Mar 17, 20002 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5137440
2. Avalanche · Mar 13, 20072 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $1K damage · NOAA record 22991
3. Heavy Snow · Feb 20, 19961 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 2 injuries · NOAA record 5540165
4. Lightning · Jul 24, 19971 death
   NOAA name: Pitkin County · NOAA record 5610806
5. Avalanche · Mar 8, 19981 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5638304

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 $233K on 30 claims in Pitkin County from 1983 to 2018.

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 Pitkin 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 Pitkin 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 1,519 records, 77 were filed against this county and 1,442 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.