Queens County, New York: hazard history

FEMA declared 25 disasters that named Queens County between 1965 and 2021.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3572 2021 · Hurricane · Remnants Of Hurricane Ida
• DR-4615 2021 · Hurricane · Remnants Of Hurricane Ida
• EM-3565 2021 · Hurricane · Hurricane Henri
• DR-4567 2020 · Hurricane · Tropical Storm Isaias
• EM-3434 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4480 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3351 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4085 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4020 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene
• EM-3328 2011 · Hurricane · Hurricane Irene

Not counted above: 9 statewide declarations, which covered every county in New York. 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 Queens County each year. The busiest year was 2021, with 47 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flash Flood · Sep 1, 2021$60.0M
   NOAA name: QUEENS · NOAA record 994928
2. Tornado · Sep 16, 2010$17.2M
   NOAA name: QUEENS · 2 deaths · 1 injury · NOAA record 262537
3. Flash Flood · Oct 19, 1996$3.6M
   NOAA name: QUEENS · NOAA record 5582286
4. Coastal Flood · Oct 19, 1996$3.0M
   NOAA name: QUEENS · NOAA record 5582295
5. High Wind · Oct 29, 2012$1.0M
   NOAA name: NORTHERN QUEENS · 1 death · NOAA record 413125

Deadliest records

1. Heat · Aug 1, 200614 deaths
   NOAA name: QUEENS · NOAA record 5531650
2. Coastal Flood · Oct 29, 20127 deaths
   NOAA name: SOUTHERN QUEENS · NOAA record 421130
3. High Wind · Mar 6, 19974 deaths
   NOAA name: QUEENS · 6 injuries · NOAA record 5610916
4. Extreme Cold/Wind Chill · Feb 4, 20074 deaths
   NOAA name: QUEENS · NOAA record 14175
5. Excessive Heat · Jul 4, 20104 deaths
   NOAA name: QUEENS · NOAA record 249841

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 $693.0M on 14,853 claims in Queens 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 Queens 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 Queens 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 New York yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: NORTHERN QUEENS, QUEENS, SOUTHERN QUEENS. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 0% of New York's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.