Cascade County, Montana: hazard history

FEMA declared 7 disasters that named Cascade County between 1975 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4508 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3476 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-1996 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3253 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1340 2000 · Fire · Wildfires
• DR-640 1981 · Flood · Severe Storms & Flooding
• DR-472 1975 · Flood · Rains, Showmelt, Storms & Flooding

Not counted above: 32 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Montana. 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 Cascade County each year. The busiest year was 2022, with 100 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flash Flood · Jun 19, 2003$250K
   NOAA name: CASCADE · NOAA record 5366457
2. Flood · Jun 3, 2005$80K
   NOAA name: CASCADE · NOAA record 5454863
3. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 19, 2003$60K
   NOAA name: CASCADE · NOAA record 5366453
4. Flood · May 17, 2023$60K
   NOAA name: CASCADE · 2 deaths · NOAA record 1102212
5. Flash Flood · Jun 5, 2023$50K
   NOAA name: CASCADE · NOAA record 1105458

Deadliest records

1. High Wind · Jan 12, 20022 deaths
   NOAA name: CASCADE · 4 injuries · NOAA record 5276997
2. Flood · May 17, 20232 deaths
   NOAA name: CASCADE · $60K damage · NOAA record 1102212

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 $874K on 260 claims in Cascade County from 1978 to 2023.

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 Cascade 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 Cascade 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 Montana yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: CASCADE, CASCADE COUNTY BELOW 5000FT. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 24% of Montana's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.