Disaster Declarations and Major Hazard Occurrences in the United States∗

∗We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive criticisms, all of which helped to improve this article. We also want to thank M. Gall, K. Borden, B. Boruff, K. Freer, and C. Emrich who critiqued earlier versions of the article.

Figures & data

Figure 1 Annual major hazard events and disaster declarations from 1965 to 2004.

Figure 2 Disasters 1965–2004: (A) Total number of major hazard events by county. (B) Total number of presidential disaster declarations (PDDs) by county.

Figure 3 Local spatial association between presidential disaster declarations (PDDs) and major hazard events calculated using a bivariate local Moran's I.

Table 1 PDD success rates: 1965–2004

State/FEMA region	# Granted	# Submitted	Success rate
States
West Virginia	30	32	0.94
Oregon	15	17	0.88
New Hampshire	15	17	0.88
District of Columbia	7	8	0.88
Vermont	19	22	0.86
Colorado	12	14	0.86
Louisiana	41	49	0.84
South Dakota	20	24	0.83
Delaware	9	11	0.82
Alaska	20	25	0.80
Tennessee	35	44	0.80
Pennsylvania	31	39	0.79
Massachusetts	15	19	0.79
Iowa	29	37	0.78
North Dakota	28	36	0.78
Minnesota	35	45	0.78
Montana	14	18	0.78
Indiana	25	33	0.76
Maine	25	33	0.76
Washington	32	43	0.74
Arizona	17	23	0.74
Virginia	33	45	0.73
Nebraska	24	33	0.73
Michigan	21	29	0.72
Hawaii	13	18	0.72
Oklahoma	39	54	0.72
New Jersey	18	25	0.72
Kentucky	38	53	0.72
California	54	77	0.70
Wisconsin	30	43	0.70
Florida	46	66	0.70
Idaho	11	16	0.69
Illinois	37	54	0.69
Maryland	15	22	0.68
Missouri	29	43	0.67
New Mexico	16	24	0.67
Arkansas	34	52	0.65
Ohio	35	55	0.64
Mississippi	36	57	0.63
Texas	66	105	0.63
North Carolina	25	40	0.63
Alabama	41	66	0.62
Kansas	24	39	0.62
New York	41	69	0.59
Connecticut	9	16	0.56
Nevada	8	15	0.53
Georgia	20	38	0.53
South Carolina	10	20	0.50
Wyoming	5	10	0.50
Rhode Island	4	8	0.50
Utah	5	13	0.38
FEMA regions
Region 1: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont	87	115	0.78
Region 2: New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands	86	125	0.69
Region 3: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia	125	157	0.80
Region 4: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee	251	384	0.65
Region 5: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin	183	259	0.71
Region 6: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas	196	284	0.69
Region 7: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska	106	152	0.70
Region 8: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming	84	115	0.73
Region 9: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Pacific Island territories	144	194	0.74
Region 10: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington	78	101	0.77
Source: Data are from PERI (2006).
Notes: PPD = presidential disaster declaration; FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Table 2 Variables used to predict the number of presidential disaster declarations (PDDs) in the global regression model

Independent variable	Standardized coefficient
Major hazard events	0.351∗
State success rate	0.345∗
Regional success rate	−0.131∗

Table 3 Two-county example from the geographically weighted regression model

Parameter	Chambers, Texas	Harding, South Dakota
PDD	5	5
Major hazard events	17	1
State success rate	0.63	0.83
Regional success rate	0.69	0.73
Local R ^2	0.44	0.78
Intercept coefficient	49.45	−77.12
Major hazard slope coefficient	0.23	0.83
State success slope coefficient	11.91	14.97
Regional success slope coefficient	−76.53	94.85
Note: PDD = presidential disaster declaration.

Figure 4 R² values of the local regressions conducted for each county using geographically weighted regression, with presidential disaster declarations as the dependent variable and major hazard events, state success rate, and regional success rate as the independent variables.

Figure 5 Parameter values of the local regression conducted for each county using geographically weighted regression: (A) intercept values, (B) coefficients for the major hazard event variable, (C) coefficients for the state success rate variable, (D) coefficients for the regional success rate variable.