Stephenson County, Illinois: hazard history

FEMA declared 14 disasters that named Stephenson County between 1969 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4489 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3435 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4461 2019 · Flood · Severe Storms And Flooding
• DR-1960 2011 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm
• DR-1935 2010 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3283 2008 · Snowstorm · Record Snow And Near Record Snow
• DR-1722 2007 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3269 2006 · Snowstorm · Snow
• EM-3230 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1129 1996 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding

Not counted above: 2 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Illinois. 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 Stephenson County each year. The busiest year was 2008, with 67 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · Jul 22, 2017$7.0M
   NOAA name: Stephenson County · NOAA record 716606
2. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 5, 2003$2.5M
   NOAA name: Stephenson County · NOAA record 5377270
3. High Wind · May 9, 2003$2.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5359316
4. Thunderstorm Wind · Apr 19, 1996$1.2M
   NOAA name: Stephenson County · NOAA record 5560275
5. High Wind · May 4, 2003$1.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5359107

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Jul 27, 20112 deaths
   NOAA name: Stephenson County · $500K damage · NOAA record 332697

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 $3.6M on 197 claims in Stephenson County from 1979 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 Stephenson 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 Stephenson 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 691 records, 457 were filed against this county and 234 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: 1% of Illinois'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.