Gallatin County, Montana: hazard history

FEMA declared 9 disasters that named Gallatin County between 1981 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• FM-5346 2020 · Fire · Bridger Foothills Fire
• EM-3476 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4508 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3253 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1385 2001 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms
• FM-2321 2000 · Fire · Mt - South Central Zone 4 Fire Complex
• DR-1340 2000 · Fire · Wildfires
• DR-1105 1996 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, And Ice Jams
• DR-640 1981 · Flood · Severe Storms & Flooding

Not counted above: 33 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. 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 Gallatin County each year. The busiest year was 2025, with 80 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Hail · Jun 30, 2010$60.0M
   NOAA name: Gallatin County · NOAA record 229999
2. Flood · Apr 10, 2023$1.0M
   NOAA name: Gallatin County · NOAA record 1096960
3. High Wind · Dec 17, 2025$610K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1306305
4. Flood · May 1, 1997$543K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5600147
5. High Wind · Jan 13, 2021$500K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 935959

Deadliest records

1. Winter Weather · Nov 7, 20222 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1060540
2. Winter Storm · Nov 18, 19961 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5570310
3. Lightning · Jun 17, 19991 death
   NOAA name: Gallatin County · NOAA record 5709059
4. Winter Weather · Dec 19, 20121 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 424865
5. Avalanche · Feb 22, 20141 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 504844

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 $348K on 77 claims in Gallatin 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 Gallatin 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 Gallatin 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 753 records, 189 were filed against this county and 564 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: 21% of Montana'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.