Culberson County, Texas: hazard history
What federal records show has already happened here: disaster declarations, storms, and flood insurance claims. This is a record of the past. It is not a forecast and not a hazard score.
At a glance
What this means
- The event NOAA recorded most often here is High Wind, with 750 records.
- The costliest single record is Ice Storm in 2013: $1.0M in property damage, in the dollars of that year.
- FEMA has declared 12 disasters that named this county, most often for fire.
- The worst year for flood insurance claims was 2020, with 1 claims.
What this can't tell you
- What happens next. Past events do not set the odds of the next one.
- Anything before 1996 from NOAA. That is when NOAA began recording every event type; earlier files hold only tornado, hail and wind, so they are left out on purpose.
- Today's cost. Damage and payments are in the dollars of the year they happened.
- A flood rate. NFIP counts claims but not how many homes were insured, and many flooded homes carry no flood insurance.
- Earthquakes, wildfire perimeters or radar-detected hail. Those records are not tied to counties.
Federal disaster declarations (FEMA)
FEMA declared 12 disasters that named Culberson County between 1998 and 2021.
| Incident type | Disasters | Most recent |
|---|---|---|
| Fire | 4 | 2011 |
| Hurricane | 3 | 2005 |
| Biological | 2 | 2020 |
| Severe Ice Storm | 2 | 2021 |
| Severe Storm | 1 | 1998 |
Most recent declarations
- EM-3554 2021 · Severe Ice Storm · Severe Winter Storm
- DR-4586 2021 · Severe Ice Storm · Severe Winter Storms
- DR-4485 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
- EM-3458 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
- DR-1999 2011 · Fire · Wildfires
- EM-3284 2008 · Fire · Wildfires
- DR-1624 2005 · Fire · Extreme Wildfire Threat
- DR-1606 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Rita
- EM-3261 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Rita
- EM-3216 2005 · Hurricane · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
Not counted above: 102 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Texas. 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.
Storms recorded by NOAA, by type
| Event type | Records | Deaths | Injuries | Property damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Wind | 750 | 0 | 0 | $51K |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 59 | 0 | 1 | $158K |
| Hail | 41 | 0 | 0 | $15K |
| Flash Flood | 12 | 0 | 0 | $22K |
| Heavy Snow | 5 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Extreme Cold/Wind Chill | 4 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Flood | 3 | 0 | 0 | $1K |
| Ice Storm | 3 | 0 | 0 | $1.0M |
| Tornado | 2 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Blizzard | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Drought | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Dust Storm | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Heavy Rain | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Tropical Storm | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Winter Storm | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Winter Weather | 1 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
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.
Year by year
NOAA storm event records in Culberson County each year. The busiest year was 2011, with 90 records.
Show the numbers for every year
| Year | Records | Deaths | Property damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | 1 | 0 | $50K |
| 1997 | 5 | 0 | $0 |
| 1998 | 2 | 0 | $0 |
| 2000 | 16 | 0 | $11K |
| 2002 | 5 | 0 | $0 |
| 2003 | 2 | 0 | $0 |
| 2004 | 7 | 0 | $0 |
| 2005 | 9 | 0 | $0 |
| 2006 | 12 | 0 | $10K |
| 2007 | 27 | 0 | $0 |
| 2008 | 38 | 0 | $0 |
| 2009 | 70 | 0 | $40K |
| 2010 | 68 | 0 | $0 |
| 2011 | 90 | 0 | $0 |
| 2012 | 82 | 0 | $0 |
| 2013 | 72 | 0 | $1.0M |
| 2014 | 85 | 0 | $5K |
| 2015 | 40 | 0 | $0 |
| 2016 | 54 | 0 | $0 |
| 2017 | 69 | 0 | $0 |
| 2018 | 56 | 0 | $45K |
| 2019 | 45 | 0 | $0 |
| 2020 | 2 | 0 | $20K |
| 2021 | 4 | 0 | $6K |
| 2022 | 3 | 0 | $0 |
| 2023 | 11 | 0 | $55K |
| 2025 | 8 | 0 | $0 |
| 2026 | 3 | 0 | $1K |
Years with no record are left out of the table, not shown as zero.
Notable events
Costliest records
- Ice Storm · Nov 22, 2013$1.0MNOAA name: GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS OF CULBERSON COUNTY · NOAA record 479956
- Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 17, 1996$50KNOAA name: CULBERSON · 1 injury · NOAA record 5577331
- Thunderstorm Wind · May 9, 2023$50KNOAA name: CULBERSON · NOAA record 1100075
- High Wind · Dec 8, 2009$40KNOAA name: GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS OF CULBERSON COUNTY · NOAA record 206252
- Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 7, 2018$30KNOAA name: CULBERSON · NOAA record 765364
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.
Flood insurance claims (NFIP)
The National Flood Insurance Program paid $63K on 1 claims in Culberson County from 2020 to 2020.
| Year | Claims | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 1 | $63K |
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.
Hazard vulnerability analysis: the probability column for a facility in Culberson County
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.
| Hazard | Prob. | Basis, from the county record |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane / Tropical Storm | 3 | 1 NCEI event over 31 years (0.03/yr). 3 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| Severe Thunderstorm | 3 | 100 NCEI events over 31 years (3.23/yr). 1 federal disaster declaration naming the county. |
| Wild Fire | 3 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. 4 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| High Wind (non-convective) | 3 | 750 NCEI events over 31 years (24.19/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Flood, External | 2 | 16 NCEI events over 31 years (0.52/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Snow Fall / Blizzard / Ice Storm | 2 | 11 NCEI events over 31 years (0.35/yr). 2 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| Temperature Extremes | 2 | 4 NCEI events over 31 years (0.13/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Epidemic | 2 | 2 federal disaster declarations naming the county. |
| Tornado | 1 | 2 NCEI events over 31 years (0.06/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Drought | 1 | 1 NCEI event over 31 years (0.03/yr). No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Earthquake | 1 | No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Landslide | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Tidal Wave / Tsunami | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Volcano | 1 | No events of this kind on the county's NCEI record over 31 years. No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
| Dam Inundation | 1 | No federal disaster declaration of this kind has named the county. |
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 Culberson 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.
How this page was made
- 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 Culberson 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 Texas yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: CULBERSON, EASTERN CULBERSON COUNTY, GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS OF CULBERSON COUNTY. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 1% of Texas's NOAA records.
- Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.
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Recorded history from federal public records. Not a hazard score, a risk score, or a forecast, and not a substitute for professional actuarial or emergency-management assessment. Decision-support intelligence — not a primary alerting or dispatch system. Verify against official sources.