Franklin County, Massachusetts: hazard history

FEMA declared 22 disasters that named Franklin County between 1985 and 2023.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3599 2023 · Hurricane · Hurricane Lee
• DR-4496 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3438 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4110 2013 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm, Snowstorm, And Flooding
• EM-3350 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• EM-3343 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storm
• DR-4051 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storm And Snowstorm
• DR-4028 2011 · Hurricane · Tropical Storm Irene
• EM-3330 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene
• EM-3296 2008 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm

Not counted above: 9 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Massachusetts. 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 Franklin County each year. The busiest year was 2016, with 71 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · Aug 28, 2011$22.0M
   NOAA name: Franklin County · NOAA record 341462
2. Heavy Snow · Mar 30, 2001$8.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5238022
3. Tropical Storm · Aug 28, 2011$3.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 341390
4. Heavy Snow · Mar 9, 2001$3.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5237896
5. Ice Storm · Dec 11, 2008$3.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 146799

Deadliest records

1. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 9, 20041 death
   NOAA name: Franklin County · $5K damage · NOAA record 5410207
2. High Wind · Oct 29, 20061 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $8K damage · NOAA record 2195

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 $3.4M on 113 claims in Franklin 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 Franklin 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 Franklin 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 1,082 records, 627 were filed against this county and 455 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.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.