Union County, Oregon: hazard history

FEMA declared 10 disasters that named Union County between 1964 and 2026.

Most recent declarations

• FM-5664 2026 · Fire · Hagen Fire
• DR-4907 2025 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Straight-line Winds, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4519 2020 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• EM-3429 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4499 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3228 2005 · Coastal Storm · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• DR-1510 2003 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storms
• DR-1099 1996 · Flood · High Winds, Severe Storms And Flooding
• EM-3039 1977 · Drought · Drought
• DR-184 1964 · Flood · Heavy Rains & Flooding

Not counted above: 40 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. 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 Union County each year. The busiest year was 2012, with 37 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · May 15, 2011$2.0M
   NOAA name: Union County · NOAA record 312520
2. Flood · Feb 6, 2020$750K
   NOAA name: Union County · NOAA record 871972
3. High Wind · Nov 12, 2007$500K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 62307
4. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 19, 2004$300K
   NOAA name: Union County · 1 injury · NOAA record 5414332
5. Flood · Apr 8, 2019$250K
   NOAA name: Union County · NOAA record 818061

Deadliest records

1. Winter Weather · Nov 3, 20112 deaths
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 346665
2. Heavy Snow · Feb 12, 20001 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $20K damage · 4 injuries · NOAA record 5132623
3. Cold/Wind Chill · Jan 5, 20041 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5383778
4. Avalanche · Mar 7, 20091 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 2 injuries · NOAA record 171755

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 $166K on 22 claims in Union County from 1978 to 2021.

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 1997 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 Union 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 Union 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 607 records, 140 were filed against this county and 467 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: 31% of Oregon'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.