Sanders County, Montana: hazard history
What federal records show has already happened here: disaster declarations, storms, and flood insurance claims. This is a record of the past. It is not a forecast and not a hazard score.
At a glance
What this means
- The event NOAA recorded most often here is Heavy Snow, with 388 records.
- The costliest single record is Winter Storm in 2018: $5.0M in property damage, in the dollars of that year.
- The deadliest record is Winter Storm in 2025, with 4 deaths.
- FEMA has declared 16 disasters that named this county, most often for fire.
- The worst year for flood insurance claims was 1997, with 5 claims.
What this can't tell you
- What happens next. Past events do not set the odds of the next one.
- Anything before 1996 from NOAA. That is when NOAA began recording every event type; earlier files hold only tornado, hail and wind, so they are left out on purpose.
- Today's cost. Damage and payments are in the dollars of the year they happened.
- A flood rate. NFIP counts claims but not how many homes were insured, and many flooded homes carry no flood insurance.
- Earthquakes, wildfire perimeters or radar-detected hail. Those records are not tied to counties.
Federal disaster declarations (FEMA)
FEMA declared 16 disasters that named Sanders County between 1974 and 2025.
| Incident type | Disasters | Most recent |
|---|---|---|
| Fire | 6 | 2023 |
| Flood | 4 | 2025 |
| Biological | 2 | 2020 |
| Severe Storm | 2 | 1997 |
| Hurricane | 1 | 2005 |
| Straight-Line Winds | 1 | 2025 |
Most recent declarations
- DR-4902 2025 · Straight-Line Winds · Severe Winter Storm And Straight-line Winds
- EM-3630 2025 · Flood · Severe Storms And Flooding
- FM-5480 2023 · Fire · River Road East Fire
- DR-4508 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
- EM-3476 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
- FM-5210 2017 · Fire · Highway 200 Fire Complex
- FM-5211 2017 · Fire · Moose Peak Fire
- DR-4172 2014 · Flood · Ice Jams And Flooding
- EM-3253 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
- FM-2489 2003 · Fire · Mt-cherry Creek Fire -08/06/03
Not counted above: 31 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.
Storms recorded by NOAA, by type
| Event type | Records | Deaths | Injuries | Property damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy Snow | 388 | 2 | 1 | $105K |
| Winter Storm | 225 | 6 | 2 | $5.4M |
| Winter Weather | 180 | 16 | 6 | $136K |
| High Wind | 95 | 1 | 3 | $4.1M |
| Strong Wind | 47 | 0 | 0 | $1.2M |
| Flood | 24 | 0 | 0 | $3.2M |
| Cold/Wind Chill | 23 | 1 | 0 | $1K |
| Frost/Freeze | 23 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Hail | 20 | 0 | 0 | $1K |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 19 | 0 | 1 | $36K |
| Extreme Cold/Wind Chill | 17 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Blizzard | 8 | 1 | 0 | $200K |
| Ice Storm | 8 | 0 | 0 | $30K |
| Heat | 6 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Excessive Heat | 5 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Wildfire | 5 | 0 | 0 | $3.6M |
| Avalanche | 4 | 1 | 0 | $0 |
| Heavy Rain | 4 | 0 | 0 | $5K |
| Debris Flow | 3 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Dense Fog | 3 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Flash Flood | 1 | 0 | 0 | $15K |
| Freezing Fog | 1 | 2 | 0 | $70K |
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.
Year by year
NOAA storm event records in Sanders County each year. The busiest year was 1996, with 89 records.
Show the numbers for every year
| Year | Records | Deaths | Property damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | 89 | 3 | $901K |
| 1997 | 35 | 0 | $1.5M |
| 1998 | 16 | 0 | $0 |
| 1999 | 33 | 0 | $0 |
| 2000 | 35 | 0 | $0 |
| 2001 | 26 | 0 | $0 |
| 2002 | 38 | 0 | $0 |
| 2003 | 28 | 0 | $5K |
| 2004 | 23 | 1 | $1K |
| 2005 | 21 | 0 | $700K |
| 2006 | 40 | 0 | $10K |
| 2007 | 19 | 0 | $30K |
| 2008 | 44 | 1 | $278K |
| 2009 | 23 | 0 | $60K |
| 2010 | 19 | 0 | $59K |
| 2011 | 58 | 0 | $46K |
| 2012 | 37 | 1 | $150K |
| 2013 | 55 | 1 | $11K |
| 2014 | 65 | 3 | $104K |
| 2015 | 22 | 0 | $241K |
| 2016 | 24 | 0 | $3K |
| 2017 | 39 | 1 | $234K |
| 2018 | 30 | 3 | $5.0M |
| 2019 | 33 | 0 | $595K |
| 2020 | 26 | 0 | $1.3M |
| 2021 | 28 | 0 | $4.4M |
| 2022 | 57 | 3 | $195K |
| 2023 | 26 | 3 | $204K |
| 2024 | 33 | 0 | $180K |
| 2025 | 62 | 9 | $1.9M |
| 2026 | 25 | 1 | $85K |
Years with no record are left out of the table, not shown as zero.
Notable events
Costliest records
- Winter Storm · Feb 8, 2018$5.0MNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 732642
- Wildfire · Aug 1, 2021$3.6MNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 976604
- Strong Wind · Apr 11, 2020$1.0MNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 879415
- High Wind · Dec 17, 2025$1.0MNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1306889
- Flood · May 1, 1997$912KNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5600149
Deadliest records
- Winter Storm · Feb 13, 20254 deathsNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1239953
- Winter Weather · Dec 19, 20182 deathsNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $1K damage · NOAA record 794225
- Winter Weather · Nov 7, 20222 deathsNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1060540
- Freezing Fog · Dec 16, 20232 deathsNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $70K damage · NOAA record 1147344
- Winter Weather · Jan 3, 20252 deathsNOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 1226791
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.
Flood insurance claims (NFIP)
The National Flood Insurance Program paid $223K on 7 claims in Sanders County from 1997 to 2011.
| Year | Claims | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 5 | $221K |
| 2011 | 2 | $1K |
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.
Hazard vulnerability analysis: the probability column for a facility in Sanders County
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.
| Hazard | Prob. | Basis, from the county record |
|---|---|---|
| Severe Thunderstorm | 3 | 39 NCEI events over 31 years (1.26/yr). 2 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| Flood, External | 3 | 29 NCEI events over 31 years (0.94/yr). 4 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| Snow Fall / Blizzard / Ice Storm | 3 | 810 NCEI events over 31 years (26.13/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Temperature Extremes | 3 | 74 NCEI events over 31 years (2.39/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Wild Fire | 3 | 5 NCEI events over 31 years (0.16/yr). 6 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| High Wind (non-convective) | 3 | 142 NCEI events over 31 years (4.58/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Hurricane / Tropical Storm | 2 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. 1 federal disaster declaration naming the county. |
| Landslide | 2 | 7 NCEI events over 31 years (0.23/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Epidemic | 2 | 2 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| Tornado | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Drought | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Earthquake | 1 | No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Tidal Wave / Tsunami | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Volcano | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Dam Inundation | 1 | No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
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 Sanders 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.
How this page was made
- 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 Sanders 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 1,109 records, 55 were filed against this county and 1,054 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.
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Recorded history from federal public records. Not a hazard score, a risk score, or a forecast, and not a substitute for professional actuarial or emergency-management assessment. Decision-support intelligence — not a primary alerting or dispatch system. Verify against official sources.