For those that don’t know, FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It is tasked with leading disaster response and recovery efforts. FEMA disasters are declared by the federal government at the request of state governments who may feel that they lack the resources to deal with a disaster. Some disaster declarations cover multiple counties.
edit: After I saw u/haykenbacon’s comment I think I figured out why some states have so few tornado disasters. They linked a list of [disaster declarations for Missouri](https://sema.dps.mo.gov/maps_and_disasters/disasters/), which showed a lot of “severe storms” disasters. I think that some states just tend to categorize tornadoes as “severe storms.” I can’t easily account for this in a map because I think states that tend to declare tornado disasters probably use the severe storms category for non-tornado-forming storms.
Alabama and Missouri seem surprisingly blank
WTF is going on with Missouri? There’s no way the tornadoes are just stopping at the Mississippi River
Mother nature seems to have something against Oklahoma in particular.
So either Indiana has tornado deflector shields or they just hate FEMA.
Alternatively titled as “places where I do not want to buy a house.”
It looks to me like Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri are less likely to declare disasters. The bottom half of Illinois, is very similar to Iowa and Missouri.
Check out M. Monmonier’s book “Cartography of Danger”, it is a real gem if you like disaster maps, flood zones, evacuation plans and so forth.
![[OC] FEMA Tornado Disasters Since 1980](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1748521930_8dd7f5m4xm3f1-1920x1024.jpeg)
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Data: [https://www.fema.gov/openfema-data-page/disaster-declarations-summaries-v2](https://www.fema.gov/openfema-data-page/disaster-declarations-summaries-v2)
Tools: R (packages: dplyr, ggplot2, sf, usmap, tools, ggfx, grid, scales)
For those that don’t know, FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It is tasked with leading disaster response and recovery efforts. FEMA disasters are declared by the federal government at the request of state governments who may feel that they lack the resources to deal with a disaster. Some disaster declarations cover multiple counties.
edit: After I saw u/haykenbacon’s comment I think I figured out why some states have so few tornado disasters. They linked a list of [disaster declarations for Missouri](https://sema.dps.mo.gov/maps_and_disasters/disasters/), which showed a lot of “severe storms” disasters. I think that some states just tend to categorize tornadoes as “severe storms.” I can’t easily account for this in a map because I think states that tend to declare tornado disasters probably use the severe storms category for non-tornado-forming storms.
Alabama and Missouri seem surprisingly blank
WTF is going on with Missouri? There’s no way the tornadoes are just stopping at the Mississippi River
Mother nature seems to have something against Oklahoma in particular.
So either Indiana has tornado deflector shields or they just hate FEMA.
Alternatively titled as “places where I do not want to buy a house.”
It looks to me like Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri are less likely to declare disasters. The bottom half of Illinois, is very similar to Iowa and Missouri.
Check out M. Monmonier’s book “Cartography of Danger”, it is a real gem if you like disaster maps, flood zones, evacuation plans and so forth.
When I saw that the Joplin EF5 wasnt shown, I knew something is wrong with the data set for Missouri. https://sema.dps.mo.gov/maps_and_disasters/disasters/
Tornados are selectively targeting Illinois residents.
As if I needed another reason not to live in Oklahoma
At least there’s one type of natural disaster California doesn’t get.
Hello— Joplin, M0 (EF5/2011) Battlefield M0. (EF4 2004) Two tornadoes I survived.
I thought it was going to be animated data or something also I guess it isnt that much then . . .
Seems like they were mostly OK, though
FEMA has been causing all of these!? DAMN FEDERAL AGENCIES!!!!
Missouri has its anti tornado beam energized. And people say the Arch is just a monument.
Let’s go Virginias. Pussy ass wind can’t hurt us
There’s a lot of data missing here. If it were complete, the map would look very different. As it is, it’s fairly misleading.
A map showing dollar estimates of damage would probably show more detail.
How come there is nothing in Joplin, Mo?
Look at all those red states
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