Elko County, Nevada: hazard history

FEMA declared 19 disasters that named Elko County between 1977 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4523 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3443 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• FM-5191 2017 · Fire · Oil Well Fire
• DR-4307 2017 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, And Mudslides
• FM-2972 2011 · Fire · Indian Creek Fire
• FM-2717 2007 · Fire · Murphy Fire Complex
• FM-2670 2006 · Fire · Mudd Fire
• FM-2648 2006 · Fire · Suzie Fire
• DR-1629 2005 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3243 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation

Not counted above: 20 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Nevada. 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 Elko County each year. The busiest year was 2023, with 184 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Hail · May 26, 2018$5.0M
   NOAA name: Elko County · NOAA record 751588
2. Flood · Feb 7, 2017$3.0M
   NOAA name: Elko County · NOAA record 681490
3. High Wind · Mar 2, 2018$3.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 741602
4. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 21, 2018$3.0M
   NOAA name: Elko County · NOAA record 763698
5. Thunderstorm Wind · Apr 27, 2018$1.0M
   NOAA name: Elko County · NOAA record 744658

Deadliest records

1. Avalanche · Feb 20, 20211 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 1 injury · NOAA record 938139

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 $142K on 31 claims in Elko County from 1984 to 2017.

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 Elko 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 Elko 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 1,315 records, 305 were filed against this county and 1,010 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: 4% of Nevada'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.