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US disaster statistics · District of Columbia

District of Columbia disaster statistics

District of Columbia's federal declarations, flood claims and tornado history, charted from FEMA and NOAA data.

Federal major disasters · District of Columbia

15

Federal major-disaster (DR) declarations in District of Columbia since 1989 — 50th-most of the 51 states and DC, and 0.51% of the 2,920 declared nationwide.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA · 1989–2025

24 federal disaster & emergency declarations since 1989 All declaration types (DR + EM + FM) — 15 were major disasters Source: FEMA OpenFEMA
494 NFIP flood-insurance claims since 1978 0.02% of all US flood claims · #51 of 51 states & DC Source: FEMA NFIP
$21k average paid flood claim −51% vs the US average of $42k Source: FEMA NFIP
5 tornado county-segments since 1950 0.01% of the US total · #50 of 51 states & DC Source: NOAA NCEI
$58.6M severe-weather property damage since 1996 0.02% of the US total (tornado, wind, hail, flood, winter) Source: NOAA NCEI

Major-disaster declarations in District of Columbia, per year

01122 1989: 1 major disasters 1990: 0 major disasters 1991: 0 major disasters 1992: 0 major disasters 1993: 0 major disasters 1994: 1 major disasters 1995: 0 major disasters 1996: 1 major disasters 1997: 0 major disasters 1998: 0 major disasters 1999: 0 major disasters 2000: 2 major disasters 2001: 1 major disasters 2002: 0 major disasters 2003: 1 major disasters 2004: 0 major disasters 2005: 0 major disasters 2006: 0 major disasters 2007: 0 major disasters 2008: 0 major disasters 2009: 0 major disasters 2010: 2 major disasters 2011: 2 major disasters 2012: 2 major disasters 2013: 0 major disasters 2014: 0 major disasters 2015: 0 major disasters 2016: 1 major disasters 2017: 0 major disasters 2018: 0 major disasters 2019: 0 major disasters 2020: 1 major disasters 2021: 0 major disasters 2022: 0 major disasters 2023: 0 major disasters 2024: 0 major disasters 2025: 0 major disasters 19901995200020052010201520202025

Major-disaster (DR) declarations by year, 1989–2025 (37 years shown; years with none are drawn as zero). Since 1989, District of Columbia accounts for 0.51% of all US major-disaster declarations — 50th 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 District of Columbia 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 District of Columbia 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, “District of Columbia disaster & property damage statistics” (2026). https://disasterstatus.com/statistics/state/dc

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

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