Columbia County, Washington: hazard history

FEMA declared 16 disasters that named Columbia County between 1964 and 2020.

Most recent declarations

• DR-4593 2020 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm, Straight-line Winds, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4481 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3427 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4539 2020 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4309 2017 · Flood · Severe Winter Storms, Flooding, Landslides, Mudslides
• DR-1817 2009 · Flood · Severe Winter Storm, Landslides, Mudslides, And Flooding
• DR-1825 2008 · Severe Storm · Severe Winter Storm And Record And Near Record Snow
• FM-2668 2006 · Fire · Columbia Fire Complex
• EM-3227 2005 · Coastal Storm · Hurricane Katrina Evacuation
• FM-2575 2005 · Fire · School Fire

Not counted above: 49 statewide declarations, which covered every county in Washington. 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 Columbia County each year. The busiest year was 2008, with 21 records.

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

Costliest records

1. High Wind · Jan 4, 2008$4.9M
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 65745
2. High Wind · Feb 7, 2002$250K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · 1 injury · NOAA record 5282325
3. High Wind · Dec 15, 2002$150K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5325447
4. Tornado · Jan 16, 2000$100K
   NOAA name: Columbia County · NOAA record 5132929
5. High Wind · Dec 14, 2000$70K
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 5165957

Deadliest records

1. Excessive Heat · Jul 25, 20101 death
   NOAA name: NWS forecast zone · NOAA record 236728

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 $182K on 46 claims in Columbia County from 1978 to 2023.

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 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 against a county and others against an NWS forecast zone, and publishes a code for both. Records are counted as Columbia 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 283 records, 24 were filed against this county and 259 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: 39% of Washington'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.