Pocahontas County, West Virginia: hazard history

FEMA declared 23 disasters that named Pocahontas County between 1967 and 2026.

Most recent declarations

• EM-3639 2026 · Winter Storm · Severe Winter Storm
• DR-4517 2020 · Biological · Covid-19 Pandemic
• EM-3450 2020 · Biological · Covid-19
• DR-4273 2016 · Flood · Severe Storms, Flooding, Landslides, And Mudslides
• DR-4093 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• EM-3358 2012 · Hurricane · Hurricane Sandy
• EM-3345 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms
• DR-4071 2012 · Severe Storm · Severe Storms And Straight-line Winds
• DR-1903 2010 · Snowstorm · Severe Winter Storms And Snowstorms
• 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 Pocahontas County each year. The busiest year was 2025, with 52 records.

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

Costliest records

1. Flood · Jan 19, 1996$2.5M
   NOAA name: POCAHONTAS · NOAA record 5542297
2. Flash Flood · May 16, 1996$900K
   NOAA name: POCAHONTAS · NOAA record 5555485
3. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 29, 2012$750K
   NOAA name: POCAHONTAS · 1 death · NOAA record 394941
4. Blizzard · Oct 29, 2012$500K
   NOAA name: POCAHONTAS · NOAA record 412904
5. Flood · Jun 23, 2016$300K
   NOAA name: POCAHONTAS · NOAA record 638708

Deadliest records

1. Thunderstorm Wind · Jun 29, 20121 death
   NOAA name: POCAHONTAS · $750K damage · NOAA record 394941

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 $17.8M on 722 claims in Pocahontas County from 1978 to 2021.

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 Pocahontas 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 Pocahontas 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: NORTHWEST POCAHONTAS, POCAHONTAS, SOUTHEAST POCAHONTAS. 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.