Orange County, Texas: hazard history

FEMA declared 31 disasters that named Orange County between 1973 and 2024.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4798 2024 · Hurricane · Hurricane Beryl
• EM-3554 2021 · Severe Ice Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• DR-4586 2021 · Severe Ice Storm · Severe Winter Storms
• DR-4572 2020 · Hurricane · Hurricane Laura
• EM-3540 2020 · Hurricane · Tropical Storms Marco And Laura
• DR-4485 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3458 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4466 2019 · Flood · Tropical Storm Imelda
• DR-4332 2017 · Hurricane · Hurricane Harvey
• DR-4266 2016 · Flood · Severe Storms, Tornadoes, And Flooding

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.

NOAA storm event records in Orange County each year. The busiest year was 1998, with 22 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flash Flood · Aug 26, 2017$1.5B
   NOAA name: ORANGE · 10 deaths · NOAA record 719489
2. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Aug 26, 2020$1.1B
   NOAA name: ORANGE · NOAA record 918106
3. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Sep 23, 2005$500.0M
   NOAA name: ORANGE · NOAA record 5475148
4. Storm Surge/Tide · Sep 12, 2008$500.0M
   NOAA name: ORANGE · 1 death · NOAA record 136896
5. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Sep 12, 2008$75.0M
   NOAA name: ORANGE · NOAA record 136892

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Aug 26, 201710 deaths
   NOAA name: ORANGE · $1.5B damage · NOAA record 719489
2. Ice Storm · Jan 12, 19971 death
   NOAA name: ORANGE · $7.0M damage · 10 injuries · NOAA record 5589155
3. Hurricane (Typhoon) · Sep 13, 20071 death
   NOAA name: ORANGE · $10.0M damage · NOAA record 60389
4. Storm Surge/Tide · Sep 12, 20081 death
   NOAA name: ORANGE · $500.0M damage · NOAA record 136896
5. Thunderstorm Wind · Jul 18, 20091 death
   NOAA name: ORANGE · $3K damage · NOAA record 190066

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 $1.0B on 12,886 claims in Orange 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 Orange 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 Orange 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: NORTHERN ORANGE COUNTY, ORANGE, SOUTHERN ORANGE 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.