Dorchester County, Maryland: hazard history

FEMA declared 20 disasters that named Dorchester County between 1972 and 2026.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3634 2026 · Winter Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• DR-4583 2020 · Hurricane · Tropical Storm Isaias
• DR-4491 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3430 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• EM-3349 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4091 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• EM-3335 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene
• DR-4034 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene
• DR-1910 2010 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storms And Snowstorms
• DR-1652 2006 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, And Tornadoes

Not counted above: 1 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Maryland. 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 Dorchester County each year. The busiest year was 2021, with 28 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Tropical Storm · Sep 18, 2003$1.4M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5370986
2. High Wind · Sep 1, 2006$1.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5533284
3. Thunderstorm Wind · Feb 24, 2012$1.0M
   NOAA name: Dorchester County · NOAA record 366374
4. Coastal Flood · Oct 28, 2021$1.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 990748
5. Coastal Flood · Oct 29, 2012$750K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 418293

Deadliest records

1. Heat · Jul 20, 20021 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5309762

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 $20.2M on 1,129 claims in Dorchester 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 Dorchester 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 Dorchester 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 413 records, 235 were filed against this county and 178 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: 6% of Maryland'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.