Belmont County, Ohio: hazard history

FEMA declared 22 disasters that named Belmont County between 1972 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3457 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4507 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4424 2019 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, And Landslides
• DR-4360 2018 · Flood · Severe Storms, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4077 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Straight-line Winds
• EM-3346 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms
• DR-4002 2011 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3250 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1580 2004 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, And Mudslides
• DR-1556 2004 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Flooding

Not counted above: 3 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Ohio. 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 Belmont County each year. The busiest year was 1998, with 45 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · Sep 17, 2004$13.3M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 1 death · NOAA record 5422595
2. Flood · Jan 5, 2005$6.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5433089
3. Flash Flood · Jun 28, 1998$5.0M
   NOAA name: Belmont County · 1 death · NOAA record 5668587
4. Flood · Jan 19, 1996$2.2M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5544493
5. Flood · Sep 8, 2004$2.0M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5422571

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Jun 28, 19981 death
   NOAA name: Belmont County · $5.0M damage · NOAA record 5668587
2. Lightning · Jun 28, 19981 death
   NOAA name: Belmont County · NOAA record 5668898
3. Flood · Sep 17, 20041 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $13.3M damage · NOAA record 5422595
4. Lightning · May 31, 20101 death
   NOAA name: Belmont County · 5 injuries · NOAA record 224865

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 $7.6M on 658 claims in Belmont 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 Belmont 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 Belmont 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 521 records, 424 were filed against this county and 97 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.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.