Kennebec County, Maine: hazard history

FEMA declared 25 disasters that named Kennebec County between 1970 and 2023.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4754 2023 · Severe Storm · Severe Storm And Flooding
• EM-3598 2023 · Hurricane · Hurricane Lee
• DR-4719 2023 · Flood · Severe Storm And Flooding
• EM-3444 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4522 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4354 2017 · Severe Storm · Severe Storm And Flooding
• DR-1693 2007 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Inland And Coastal Flooding
• EM-3256 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1591 2005 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, Snow Melt, And Ice Jams
• EM-3206 2005 · Snowstorm · Record And/or Near Record Snow

Not counted above: 4 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Maine. 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 Kennebec County each year. The busiest year was 2007, with 44 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Ice Storm · Jan 5, 1998$49.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5639350
2. Flood · Apr 16, 2007$1.9M
   NOAA name: Kennebec County · NOAA record 30082
3. Ice Storm · Dec 21, 2013$844K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 491656
4. Flood · Apr 28, 2005$800K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5451489
5. Flood · May 1, 2023$581K
   NOAA name: Kennebec County · NOAA record 1102177

Deadliest records

1. Lightning · Jun 12, 20051 death
   NOAA name: Kennebec County · NOAA record 5457919
2. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 30, 20211 death
   NOAA name: Kennebec County · $200K damage · NOAA record 969321
3. Dense Fog · Aug 12, 20211 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 966178

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 $7.4M on 440 claims in Kennebec 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 Kennebec 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 Kennebec 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 638 records, 318 were filed against this county and 320 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.