Hale County, Texas: hazard history

FEMA declared 15 disasters that named Hale County between 1965 and 2021.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4586 2021 · Severe Ice Storm · Severe Winter Storms
• EM-3554 2021 · Severe Ice Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• EM-3458 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4485 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• 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
• EM-3142 1999 · Fire · Extreme Fire Hazards

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.

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 Hale County each year. The busiest year was 2007, with 41 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Hail · May 8, 2015$300.0M
   NOAA name: Hale County · NOAA record 567048
2. Hail · May 8, 1998$5.0M
   NOAA name: Hale County · NOAA record 5648155
3. Flash Flood · May 25, 2019$1.0M
   NOAA name: Hale County · NOAA record 824311
4. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 24, 2019$1.0M
   NOAA name: Hale County · NOAA record 826961
5. Thunderstorm Wind · May 26, 2021$1.0M
   NOAA name: Hale County · NOAA record 953276

Deadliest records

1. Lightning · Apr 26, 19981 death
   NOAA name: Hale County · NOAA record 5643311
2. Winter Weather · Feb 22, 20101 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $50K damage · NOAA record 211648
3. Winter Weather · Dec 2, 20111 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $5K damage · NOAA record 350837
4. Dense Fog · Dec 13, 20111 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · $15K damage · NOAA record 351619
5. Winter Weather · Nov 16, 20141 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 543927

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 $34K on 13 claims in Hale County from 1985 to 2019.

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 Hale 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 Hale 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 725 records, 429 were filed against this county and 296 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: 1% of Texas'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.