Ransom County, North Dakota: hazard history

FEMA declared 36 disasters that named Ransom County between 1965 and 2025.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4888 2025 · Severe Storm · Severe Storm, Tornadoes, And Straight-line Winds
• DR-4760 2023 · Winter Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Straight-line Winds
• DR-4717 2023 · Flood · Flooding
• DR-4686 2022 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storm, Snowstorm, And Straight-line Winds
• DR-4660 2022 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Flooding
• DR-4553 2020 · Flood · Flooding
• DR-4509 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3477 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4444 2019 · Flood · Flooding
• EM-3318 2011 · Flood · Flooding

Not counted above: 12 statewide declarations, which covered every county in North Dakota. 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 Ransom County each year. The busiest year was 2005, with 32 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Ice Storm · Apr 4, 1997$6.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5591746
2. Blizzard · Apr 5, 1997$6.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5591763
3. Tornado · Jul 14, 2010$2.0M
   NOAA name: Ransom County · NOAA record 263284
4. Tornado · Aug 15, 1999$1.2M
   NOAA name: Ransom County · NOAA record 5712100
5. Tornado · Jul 15, 2007$1.0M
   NOAA name: Ransom County · NOAA record 48311

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Jun 20, 20131 death
   NOAA name: Ransom County · $5K damage · NOAA record 452850

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 $755K on 148 claims in Ransom County from 1978 to 2022.

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 Ransom 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 Ransom 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 581 records, 292 were filed against this county and 289 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: 3% of North Dakota'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.