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US disaster statistics · North Carolina

North Carolina disaster statistics

North Carolina's federal declarations, flood claims and tornado history, charted from FEMA and NOAA data.

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Federal major disasters · North Carolina

57

Federal major-disaster (DR) declarations in North Carolina since 1954 — 24th-most of the 51 states and DC, and 2.0% of the 2,920 declared nationwide.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA · 1954–2025

85 federal disaster & emergency declarations since 1954 All declaration types (DR + EM + FM) — 57 were major disasters Source: FEMA OpenFEMA
109,539 NFIP flood-insurance claims since 1978 4.0% of all US flood claims · #6 of 51 states & DC Source: FEMA NFIP
$27k average paid flood claim −35% vs the US average of $42k Source: FEMA NFIP
1,021 tornado county-segments since 1950 1.3% of the US total · #17 of 51 states & DC Source: NOAA NCEI
60 direct hurricane hits, 1851–2025 7 major (Cat 3+) · #4 of 19 states ever struck Source: NOAA NHC/AOML
$12.1B severe-weather property damage since 1996 3.1% of the US total (tornado, wind, hail, flood, winter) Source: NOAA NCEI
10 federal wildfire (FMAG) declarations #21 of 41 states with any · 0.61% of the US total Source: FEMA OpenFEMA

Major-disaster declarations in North Carolina, per year

024 1954: 1 major disasters 1955: 1 major disasters 1956: 1 major disasters 1957: 0 major disasters 1958: 1 major disasters 1959: 0 major disasters 1960: 1 major disasters 1961: 0 major disasters 1962: 1 major disasters 1963: 0 major disasters 1964: 1 major disasters 1965: 0 major disasters 1966: 0 major disasters 1967: 0 major disasters 1968: 1 major disasters 1969: 0 major disasters 1970: 0 major disasters 1971: 0 major disasters 1972: 0 major disasters 1973: 1 major disasters 1974: 1 major disasters 1975: 0 major disasters 1976: 0 major disasters 1977: 1 major disasters 1978: 0 major disasters 1979: 1 major disasters 1980: 0 major disasters 1981: 0 major disasters 1982: 0 major disasters 1983: 0 major disasters 1984: 2 major disasters 1985: 0 major disasters 1986: 0 major disasters 1987: 0 major disasters 1988: 1 major disasters 1989: 2 major disasters 1990: 0 major disasters 1991: 0 major disasters 1992: 0 major disasters 1993: 1 major disasters 1994: 0 major disasters 1995: 1 major disasters 1996: 4 major disasters 1997: 0 major disasters 1998: 3 major disasters 1999: 2 major disasters 2000: 1 major disasters 2001: 0 major disasters 2002: 1 major disasters 2003: 2 major disasters 2004: 2 major disasters 2005: 1 major disasters 2006: 0 major disasters 2007: 0 major disasters 2008: 1 major disasters 2009: 0 major disasters 2010: 2 major disasters 2011: 2 major disasters 2012: 0 major disasters 2013: 3 major disasters 2014: 1 major disasters 2015: 0 major disasters 2016: 1 major disasters 2017: 0 major disasters 2018: 2 major disasters 2019: 2 major disasters 2020: 3 major disasters 2021: 2 major disasters 2022: 0 major disasters 2023: 0 major disasters 2024: 2 major disasters 2025: 1 major disasters 195519601965197019751980198519901995200020052010201520202025

Major-disaster (DR) declarations by year, 1954–2025 (72 years shown; years with none are drawn as zero). Since 1954, North Carolina accounts for 2.0% of all US major-disaster declarations — 24th of the 51 states and DC. The US as a whole averages about 57 per state.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Data as of Download CSV
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Methodology & reuse

Every North Carolina figure above is a real, published number aggregated from a federal public-domain dataset — never spun or estimated. Declarations come from FEMA's OpenFEMA DisasterDeclarationsSummaries (one declaration = one distinct disaster number; a multi-state disaster counts once in each affected state). Flood claims are the NFIP claims record; severe-weather and tornado figures are NOAA NCEI Storm Events (tornado counts are county segments, so they run above official tornado totals); hurricane strikes are NOAA's best-track landfall record; wildfire declarations are FEMA Fire Management Assistance (FMAG) grants.

“Compared to the US” lines use the same dataset on both sides: a share is this state's count divided by the national total; a rank orders the 51 states and DC (or, for hurricanes and FMAG, only the states that carry any record); the flood-payout comparison is this state's average paid claim against the national average. Where North Carolina has no record for a peril, that stat is simply omitted rather than shown as zero-padded prose.

The underlying datasets are US-government public domain; our charts and tables are licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse them with attribution to DisasterStatus.

Cite this page

DisasterStatus, “North Carolina disaster & property damage statistics” (2026). https://disasterstatus.com/statistics/state/nc

Download the data: North Carolina declarations by year (CSV). Explore the national datasets: declarations · flood claims · severe weather · hurricanes · fire.

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