Pendleton County, West Virginia: hazard history

FEMA declared 23 disasters that named Pendleton County between 1977 and 2026.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3639 2026 · Winter Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• EM-3450 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4517 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• DR-4455 2019 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4378 2018 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• EM-3358 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4093 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• DR-4071 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Straight-line Winds
• EM-3345 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms
• DR-1881 2009 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storm And Snowstorm

Not counted above: 6 statewide declarations, which covered every county in West Virginia. 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 Pendleton County each year. The busiest year was 2025, with 68 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flash Flood · Jan 19, 1996$10.0M
   NOAA name: PENDLETON · NOAA record 5541378
2. Flood · Sep 6, 1996$5.0M
   NOAA name: PENDLETON · NOAA record 5572400
3. Winter Storm · Feb 14, 2003$4.5M
   NOAA name: PENDLETON · NOAA record 5342369
4. Flash Flood · Sep 6, 1996$1.0M
   NOAA name: PENDLETON · 1 death · NOAA record 5572408
5. Flood · Sep 19, 2003$250K
   NOAA name: PENDLETON · NOAA record 5335542

Deadliest records

1. Flash Flood · Sep 6, 19961 death
   NOAA name: PENDLETON · $1.0M damage · NOAA record 5572408

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 $421K on 63 claims in Pendleton County from 1985 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 Pendleton 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 Pendleton 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 West Virginia yet; when they are, this page will count by code instead, and some counties' records will grow. NOAA names counted here: EASTERN PENDLETON, PENDLETON, WESTERN PENDLETON. Zones named for something else, such as a mountain range or two counties at once, are left out: 0% of West Virginia's NOAA records.
• Counts last rebuilt from the source records on Sep 15, 2026.