Otter Tail County, Minnesota: hazard history

FEMA declared 17 disasters that named Otter Tail County between 1965 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4531 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3453 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-1982 2011 · Flood · Severe Storms And Flooding
• DR-1921 2010 · Tornado · Severe Storms, Tornadoes, And Flooding
• DR-1830 2009 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3242 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1370 2001 · Flood · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, And Tornadoes
• DR-1175 1997 · Flood · Severe Flooding, High Winds,severe Storms
• DR-1158 1997 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms
• DR-1064 1995 · Severe Storm · Severe Thunderstorms, Winds, Flooding, Tornadoes, And Heat

Not counted above: 21 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Minnesota. 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 Otter Tail County each year. The busiest year was 2022, with 82 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Tornado · Jun 13, 2001$5.0M
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · 3 injuries · NOAA record 5251495
2. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 18, 2001$5.0M
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · NOAA record 5251349
3. Thunderstorm Wind · Sep 25, 1998$4.0M
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · NOAA record 5664228
4. Thunderstorm Wind · Sep 25, 1998$2.0M
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · NOAA record 5664224
5. Tornado · Jul 8, 2020$1.5M
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · 1 death · 2 injuries · NOAA record 898307

Deadliest records

1. Tornado · Jun 17, 20101 death
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · 5 injuries · NOAA record 245530
2. Tornado · Jul 8, 20201 death
   NOAA name: Otter Tail County · $1.5M damage · 2 injuries · NOAA record 898307

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 $1.4M on 112 claims in Otter Tail County from 1978 to 2020.

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 Otter Tail 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 Otter Tail 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 1,373 records, 916 were filed against this county and 457 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.