White County, Illinois: hazard history

FEMA declared 10 disasters that named White County between 1983 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4489 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3435 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-1991 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3230 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• EM-3199 2004 · Snowstorm · Record/near Record Snow
• DR-1416 2002 · Tornado · Severe Storms, Tornadoes And Flooding
• DR-1112 1996 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• DR-871 1990 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Tornadoes & Flooding
• DR-819 1989 · Tornado · Severe Storms & Tornadoes
• DR-684 1983 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Tornadoes & 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.

NOAA storm event records in White County each year. The busiest year was 2011, with 58 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Tornado · Apr 19, 2011$2.0M
   NOAA name: WHITE · NOAA record 289175
2. Tornado · Feb 28, 2017$2.0M
   NOAA name: WHITE · 1 death · 1 injury · NOAA record 677523
3. Tornado · Apr 19, 1996$1.0M
   NOAA name: WHITE · NOAA record 5543196
4. Flood · May 1, 2011$800K
   NOAA name: WHITE · NOAA record 307381
5. Hail · Apr 24, 2002$750K
   NOAA name: WHITE · NOAA record 5293558

Deadliest records

1. Winter Weather · Feb 9, 20111 death
   NOAA name: WHITE · NOAA record 282321
2. Tornado · Feb 28, 20171 death
   NOAA name: WHITE · $2.0M damage · 1 injury · NOAA record 677523

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 $1.2M on 79 claims in White County from 1978 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 White 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 by county and others by forecast zone, and names both. Records are counted as White County when their NOAA name is this county's name, alone or with a word like “Coastal” or “Inland” in front. The county codes NOAA also publishes have not been loaded for Illinois yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: WHITE, White. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 0% of Illinois's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.