Chouteau County, Montana: hazard history

FEMA declared 10 disasters that named Chouteau County between 1986 and 2024.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4801 2024 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Flooding
• EM-3476 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4508 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4127 2013 · Flood · Flooding
• DR-1996 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• DR-1922 2010 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3253 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1340 2000 · Fire · Wildfires
• DR-1105 1996 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, And Ice Jams
• DR-761 1986 · Flood · Heavy Rains, Landslides & Flooding

Not counted above: 29 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 Chouteau County each year. The busiest year was 2021, with 29 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · May 7, 2024$194K
   NOAA name: CHOUTEAU · NOAA record 1184545
2. Flood · Jun 3, 2005$150K
   NOAA name: CHOUTEAU · NOAA record 5454864
3. Tornado · Jun 19, 1998$50K
   NOAA name: CHOUTEAU · NOAA record 5652210
4. Tornado · Jul 7, 1999$2K
   NOAA name: CHOUTEAU · NOAA record 5707914
5. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 13, 2000$2K
   NOAA name: CHOUTEAU · NOAA record 5154050

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.

No National Flood Insurance Program claims are on record for Chouteau County.

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 Chouteau 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 Chouteau 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: CHOUTEAU. 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.
• This county's NOAA record is short (under 100 records, under 10 with damage, or under 10 years), so this page is not offered to search engines. It is still accurate.