Methodology: Federal disaster declarations (since 2015)
Every figure carrying this label on a county page is computed exactly as described below, from public government data. Nothing is estimated or editorialized.
| What it measures | county-designated federal disaster declarations explicitly mapped to residential water damage |
|---|---|
| Unit | declarations |
| Source dataset | FEMA — OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 |
| Data version / accessed | through 2026-07 (cube build 2026-07-21b, generated 2026-07-21) |
| Exact source fields | disasterNumber, declarationType, incidentType, fipsStateCode, fipsCountyCode, declarationDate |
| Formula | COUNT(fct_declaration WHERE incident_type is IN WATER_RELEVANT_INCIDENT_TYPES) per county x declaration-month x hazard |
| Predicates / filters | county-designated rows (fipsCountyCode != '000') naming the county, declarationDate month within the registered window; counted per distinct disasterNumber. Incident type water-relevance mapping (an exhaustive owner decision, not FEMA's own category): Flood IN — Direct flooding is residential water damage.; Dam/Levee Break IN — A dam or levee break is a direct uncontrolled-water event.; Hurricane IN — Hurricanes bring storm surge and rainfall-driven flooding.; Coastal Storm IN — Coastal storms bring surge and coastal flooding.; Severe Ice Storm IN — Ice and freeze events burst residential plumbing.; Winter Storm IN — Winter storms freeze and burst residential plumbing.; Freezing IN — Freezing events freeze and burst residential plumbing.; Snowstorm IN — Snowstorms are freeze events that can burst residential plumbing.; Severe Storm IN — Texas severe-storm declarations characteristically include flash flooding; FEMA's incident label does not separate flooding from wind/hail.. Excluded: Fire OUT — The incident label identifies fire, not a residential water mechanism.; Drought OUT — Drought is not a sudden residential water-damage incident.; Tornado OUT — The incident label identifies tornado damage, not flooding.; Biological OUT — Biological declarations include COVID-19 and do not describe residential water damage.; Other OUT — The generic label does not establish a residential water mechanism.; Human Cause OUT — The generic human-cause label does not establish a residential water mechanism. |
| Date semantics | DECLARATION issuance month (not incident month) |
| Window boundaries | 2015-01 (registered start) through 2026-07 (last complete declaration month) |
| Rounding | none (integer count) |
| Suppression rule | tile hidden when the windowed count is 0 |
| Minimum sample (min_n) | 1 |
| Geography | US county (FIPS) |
Internal build query
This query runs against our internal data cube (private cube_*/fct_* tables built from the public sources below). It is exact but not runnable by a reader — use the public reproduction recipe that follows.
SELECT COALESCE(SUM(declarations_count),0)
FROM cube_county
WHERE county_fips = :fips AND month >= '2015-01';Reproduce from the public source
This recomputes the figure from the raw public dataset. Public data is live and may run ahead of our snapshot (see the data version above); numbers can differ by rows added since our ingest vintage.
OpenFEMA DisasterDeclarationsSummaries v2 — fema.gov/api/open/v2:
$filter = state eq 'TX' and designatedArea eq '<County> (County)'
and declarationDate ge '2015-01-01'
$select = disasterNumber,declarationType,declarationDate $count=true
Count DISTINCT disasterNumber in the result.Worked example: Harris County: 12 water-related declarations since 2015; the previous all-incident count was 14 (14 → 12).
Change log
2026-07-21 (r3) — window boundaries corrected (no windowed metric reads "not windowed"); LIMIT/ordering/geography/status predicates documented; the query relabeled the internal build query and paired with a public raw-source reproduction recipe.
2026-07-21 — record published with source URL, exact fields, predicates, window boundaries, rounding, suppression, and a worked example. Prior records disclosed a formula only.
Corrections
Spotted an error? Corrections: support@countyguard.com. We publish the fix and note it in this change log.
Every figure in this record is computed from the public dataset named above and independently re-checked against it before publication. This record documents the data method only; it is not insurance, legal, or engineering advice.
Published by Eldhurst LLC, which is accountable for what this site publishes. Countyguard is not a licensed adjuster, contractor, engineer, or attorney. Corrections and questions: support@countyguard.com.