Columbia County, Oregon: hazard history

FEMA declared 17 disasters that named Columbia County between 1964 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4562 2020 · Fire · Wildfires And Straight-line Winds
• EM-3429 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4499 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4328 2017 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4258 2015 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms, Straight-line Winds, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4055 2012 · Flood · Severe Winter Storm, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-1824 2008 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm, Record And Near Record Snow
• DR-1733 2007 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-1683 2006 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Flooding
• DR-1632 2005 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides

Not counted above: 38 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Oregon. 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 Columbia County each year. The busiest year was 1996, with 12 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · Dec 3, 2007$36.0M
   NOAA name: COLUMBIA · NOAA record 72479
2. Flood · Dec 9, 2015$2.3M
   NOAA name: COLUMBIA · 1 death · 1 injury · NOAA record 612029
3. Flood · Dec 8, 2015$824K
   NOAA name: COLUMBIA · NOAA record 611999
4. Flood · Dec 26, 1996$200K
   NOAA name: LOWER COLUMBIA · NOAA record 5575782
5. Flood · Jan 1, 1997$200K
   NOAA name: LOWER COLUMBIA · NOAA record 5585742

Deadliest records

1. Excessive Heat · Jun 26, 20212 deaths
   NOAA name: LOWER COLUMBIA · NOAA record 965820
2. Flood · Dec 9, 20151 death
   NOAA name: COLUMBIA · $2.3M damage · 1 injury · NOAA record 612029

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 $18.6M on 429 claims in Columbia County from 1982 to 2020.

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 2024 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 Columbia 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 Columbia 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 Oregon yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: COLUMBIA, LOWER COLUMBIA. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 59% of Oregon's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.
• This county's NOAA record is short (under 100 records, under 10 with damage, or under 10 years), so this page is not offered to search engines. It is still accurate.