Florida Hurricane Risk by County: Declarations, Modeled Losses and Design Wind Speeds

The market in brief

• Miami-Dade has Florida's highest modeled hurricane loss, $330.6 million a year, followed by Lee ($300.4 million) and Palm Beach ($286.9 million) (FEMA NRI v1.20, December 2025).
• Franklin (15), Gulf (14) and Bay (13) counties lead Florida for hurricane major disaster declarations since 2000; Miami-Dade had 9 (OpenFEMA, through 2026-10-05).
• Declarations and modeled losses barely agree: the county rank correlation is 0.15.
• Florida has recorded 125 hurricane impacts since 1851 and 18 since 2000; Northwest Florida is hit most often, Southwest Florida has the most major hurricanes since 1900 (NOAA HRD).
• 87.8 percent of Florida hurricane impacts since 1900 came in August to October, and 43.9 percent in September alone.
• Risk Category II design wind speeds under the 2023 Florida Building Code run from about 115 to 180 mph; 35 of 67 counties reach 140 mph somewhere, which triggers impact protection for openings.
• The 10 highest-loss counties hold 49.7 percent of Florida's private construction jobs (325,618 in 2025, BLS QCEW).

Florida hurricane risk by county: the record at a glance

Florida has recorded 125 hurricane impacts since 1851, 38 federal hurricane major disaster declarations since 1960, and carries 34.4 percent of U.S. modeled hurricane loss. No county sits outside the hazard.

Three public yardsticks describe county hurricane exposure, and they rank counties differently. The first is the storm record: NOAA HRD lists every hurricane that produced hurricane-force winds over a Florida region from 1851 to 2025. The second is federal response: OpenFEMA lists every county named in a presidential hurricane declaration. The third is modeled loss: the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20 estimates each county's average yearly hurricane loss in dollars.

For construction, a fourth yardstick sets the rules: the ultimate design wind speed (Vult) in the 2023 Florida Building Code, which ranges from about 115 mph in the northern interior to about 180 mph in the Florida Keys for an ordinary (Risk Category II) commercial building, per CB&C interpolation of the code's contour maps (FBC 2023 Chapter 16).

Major disaster declaration (DR): A presidential declaration under the Stafford Act that opens federal recovery programs for named counties. Emergency declarations (EM) are narrower and are often issued before landfall. Both are requested by the Governor (FEMA).

Expected Annual Loss (EAL): FEMA's modeled long-run average yearly loss from a hazard in a county, in December 2024 dollars. Hurricane EAL adds building loss, agriculture loss and a dollar value for expected casualties (population equivalence). It is not a forecast for any one season.

Hurricane impact (NOAA HRD): A hurricane that produced estimated hurricane-force sustained winds over a state or region, whether or not the center crossed the coast there. HRD rates each impact on the Saffir-Simpson scale by region.

County comparison: declarations, modeled losses and design wind speeds

Counties that see the most federal declarations are not the counties with the most value at stake. The Spearman rank correlation between the two measures across 67 counties is 0.15.

Franklin County was named in 15 hurricane major disaster declarations from 2000 through the 2026-10-05 OpenFEMA refresh, the most in Florida, followed by Gulf (14) and Bay (13). All 67 counties were named at least 8 times; Hendry County has the fewest. Hurricane major disaster declarations since 2000 that named counties named 36.6 on average, and Hurricane Ian's DR-4673 named all 67 (OpenFEMA).

Measured by modeled loss, the order flips. Miami-Dade has the highest hurricane EAL in Florida at $330.6 million a year and the second highest of any U.S. county after Harris County, Texas ($457.9 million). Lee ($300.4 million), Palm Beach ($286.9 million), Brevard and Broward follow (FEMA National Risk Index v1.20). Yet Miami-Dade was named in only 9 hurricane major disaster declarations since 2000. The three Southeast Florida counties are covered in more depth in our South Florida commercial construction report, and builders active there are listed on our Miami commercial builders page.

Mid-tier metros sit between the extremes. Hillsborough County (Tampa) ranks 8th in Florida for hurricane EAL at $178.3 million and has a Risk Category II design wind speed of about 135 to 145 mph; see Tampa commercial builders. Duval County (Jacksonville) ranks 24th at $64.9 million, with 12 hurricane major disaster declarations since 2000 and design speeds of about 120 to 130 mph; see Jacksonville commercial builders.

Benchmarks: which part of Florida gets hit most

Northwest Florida is hit most often; Southwest and Southeast Florida are hit hardest. Florida as a whole carries more modeled hurricane loss than any other state.

From 1900 to 2025, NOAA HRD records 42 hurricane impacts in Northwest Florida, one every 3.0 years on average. Southwest Florida had 40 and Southeast Florida 40, but these two regions had the most Category 3 or stronger impacts (17 and 15). Northeast Florida had 16 hurricane impacts and no major hurricane impact since 1900.

Statewide, Florida averaged one hurricane impact every 1.5 years and one major hurricane impact every 3.8 years from 1900 to 2025. Three Category 5 hurricanes have struck Florida since 1851: the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Andrew in 1992 and Michael in 2018 (NOAA HRD).

Against other states, Florida stands out on modeled loss. Florida counties carry 34.4 percent of the hurricane EAL summed across the 50 states and DC ($4.28 billion a year), the most of any state and well ahead of Louisiana ($1.55 billion); 6 of the 10 highest U.S. counties and 11 of the top 25 are in Florida, and FEMA rates 21 Florida counties Very High for hurricane risk (FEMA National Risk Index v1.20).

Local rules: design wind speeds, the HVHZ and wind-borne debris regions

The Florida Building Code turns hurricane exposure into design loads by county. Two counties have fixed speeds; the other 65 read theirs from contour maps, and the wind-borne debris region decides where openings need impact protection.

The High Velocity Hurricane Zone (HVHZ) consists of Broward and Miami-Dade counties (FBC 2023 Chapter 2). Section 1620.2 fixes HVHZ design wind speeds: 175 mph for Risk Category II buildings in Miami-Dade and 170 mph in Broward, rising to 195 and 185 mph for Risk Category IV essential facilities. Section 1626.1 requires every part of the HVHZ building envelope, including walls, roof, doors, skylights and glazing, to pass impact tests or be protected by a tested device (FBC 2023 Chapter 16). Our HVHZ construction guide covers product approvals and inspections.

Outside the HVHZ, Vult comes from FBC Figures 1609.3(1) to 1609.3(4) by risk category, and the exact location of wind speed lines is set by local ordinance (Section 1609.3). The wind-borne debris region covers areas where Vult is at least 140 mph, plus land within 1 mile of the coast where Vult is at least 130 mph and Exposure D applies (FBC 2023 Chapter 2). In that region, glazed openings must be impact resistant or protected; glazing within 30 feet of grade must pass the large missile test (Section 1609.1.2).

By CB&C's interpolation of the code's contour data, Risk Category II speeds reach 140 mph somewhere in 35 of 67 counties and cover the whole county in 22. In 16 counties, all in north Florida and the Big Bend, speeds stay below 130 mph everywhere. One of them is Taylor County (about 120 to 125 mph), where HURDAT2 places the landfalls of Idalia (2023), Debby (2024) and Helene (2024); design speeds reflect long-return-period statistics, not recent storm counts.

The 2023 code adopted ASCE 7-22. According to a June 2024 fact sheet posted with the Florida Building Commission's code resources, wind speeds on the peninsula are effectively unchanged since the 2010 code, while speeds in the western Panhandle increased. The same fact sheet notes the ATC Hazard by Location website cannot be used for 2023-code site wind speeds; the ASCE 7 Hazard Tool or the University of Florida county maps are the references (fact sheet; UF GeoPlan).

Ultimate design wind speed (Vult): A 3-second gust speed at 33 feet in open terrain used to compute wind loads. It is not comparable to the 1-minute sustained speeds used for Saffir-Simpson categories, so a building designed for 150 mph Vult is not rated for a 150 mph Category 4 hurricane in the same sense.

Hurricane season and construction schedules: what the record shows

Hurricane season runs six months, but 87.8 percent of Florida hurricane impacts since 1900 came in August, September or October.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks on September 10, with most activity between mid-August and mid-October (NHC climatology). The Florida record matches: of 82 hurricane impacts from 1900 to 2025, 36 came in September, 24 in October and 12 in August. June and July had 4 each and November 2 (NOAA HRD).

Public data do not measure schedule days lost to storms. The closest proxy is employment. In Lee County, private construction employment (BLS QCEW, Lee County) was 36,391 in September 2022, the month Ian made landfall, and 36,038 in October 2022, a 1.0 percent drop. It then rose 4.0 percent by December 2022 and 11.0 percent by September 2023, adding 3,989 jobs while Florida construction employment rose 4.1 percent.

• Peak window: August to October holds 87.8 percent of Florida hurricane impacts since 1900; September alone holds 43.9 percent (NOAA HRD).
• No Florida hurricane impact on record from December through May, 1851 to 2025 (NOAA HRD).
• After a major landfall, demand shifts: Lee County construction jobs grew 11.0 percent in the year after Ian versus 3.1 percent in the year before.

For how weather affects construction activity across the year beyond hurricanes, see our construction seasonality index.

Trend: declarations by decade and the record since 2000

Hurricane impacts per decade show no steady rise in the HRD record, but the reach of federal declarations has grown: recent declarations name far more counties.

Florida recorded 8 hurricane impacts in the 2000s, 4 in the 2010s and 6 from 2020 to 2025, within the range of earlier decades (9 in the 1940s, 3 in the 1970s). County designations in hurricane major disaster declarations rose from 79 in the 1990s to 289 in the 2000s and 289 so far in the 2020s (OpenFEMA).

Recent landfalls by NHC report: Michael came ashore near Mexico Beach and Tyndall Air Force Base on 10 October 2018 with 140 kt winds, Category 5 (NHC). Ian made landfall on Cayo Costa in Lee County on 28 September 2022 at 130 kt, about 150 mph; in Lee County at least 52,514 structures were impacted, 5,369 destroyed and 14,245 with major damage (NHC). Idalia (2023) and Helene (2024) both struck the Big Bend; NHC calls Helene the strongest Big Bend landfall since reliable records began around 1900 (NHC). Milton made landfall on Siesta Key on 10 October 2024 at about 100 kt (NHC).

Local benchmarks we calculated

Download the calculations (CSV)

What the numbers show

1. Miami-Dade County has Florida's highest modeled hurricane Expected Annual Loss, $330.6 million a year, second among U.S. counties after Harris County, Texas (FEMA NRI v1.20, December 2025).^[19]
2. Florida counties carry 34.4 percent of U.S. modeled hurricane Expected Annual Loss (50 states and DC), or $4.28 billion a year (NRI v1.20).^[19]
3. 6 of the 10 U.S. counties with the highest modeled hurricane loss are in Florida, and 11 of the top 25 (NRI v1.20).^[19]
4. The 10 highest-loss Florida counties account for 55.1 percent of the state's modeled hurricane loss (NRI v1.20).^[19]
5. Franklin County was named in 15 hurricane major disaster declarations from 2000 to 2026-10-05, the most of any Florida county (OpenFEMA).^[1]
6. All 67 Florida counties were named in at least 8 hurricane major disaster declarations from 2000 to 2026 (OpenFEMA).^[1]
7. Florida received 38 hurricane major disaster declarations and 21 hurricane emergency declarations from 1960 to 2026 (OpenFEMA).^[1]
8. County rank correlation between hurricane declarations since 2000 and modeled hurricane loss is 0.15 across Florida's 67 counties (CB&C calculation from OpenFEMA and NRI).^[1][19]
9. NOAA HRD lists 125 hurricane impacts in Florida from 1851 to 2025, 41 at Category 3 or higher.^[4]
10. Northwest Florida had 42 hurricane impacts from 1900 to 2025, the most of any Florida region; Southwest Florida had the most Category 3+ impacts, 17 (NOAA HRD).^[4]
11. 72 of 82 Florida hurricane impacts from 1900 to 2025 (87.8 percent) came in August, September or October (NOAA HRD; CB&C calculation).^[4]
12. Under the 2023 Florida Building Code, Risk Category II design wind speeds are fixed at 175 mph in Miami-Dade and 170 mph in Broward, and run from about 115 to 180 mph elsewhere by CB&C interpolation of the code maps.^[14][17]
13. The 10 Florida counties with the highest modeled hurricane loss employed 325,618 private construction workers in 2025, 49.7 percent of the state total (BLS QCEW).^[19][23]
14. Lee County private construction employment rose 11.0 percent from September 2022, when Ian struck, to September 2023, against 4.1 percent statewide (BLS QCEW).^[25][26]

Frequently asked questions

Related guides, services and research

• Building in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone
• Commercial Builders Miami: HVHZ-Ready Builders, Permits and Local Data
• Commercial Builders Fort Lauderdale: HVHZ Rules, Permits and Broward Data
• Commercial Builders Jacksonville: Licensed Builders and Duval County Rules
• Commercial Construction Spending Tracker: August 2026 Data by Building Type
• Commercial Construction Costs 2026: The CB&C Margin Squeeze Index
• Data Center Construction Projects in the US: 44 Announcements Worth $735.9 Billion, Checked Against Census Spending

Methodology

Source selection. Storm counts come from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division list of continental U.S. hurricane impacts (1851 to 2025, revised September 2026), which assigns each hurricane a Saffir-Simpson category for each of four Florida regions. Landfall points come from NHC's HURDAT2 best-track file dated 2026-09-23. Declarations come from FEMA's OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 API (Florida, incident type Hurricane, retrieved 2026-10-08, data refreshed 2026-10-05). Modeled losses come from the official FEMA National Risk Index v1.20 county table (December 2025). Design rules come from the 2023 Florida Building Code (8th edition) and the University of Florida GeoPlan contour data prepared for it. Population is Census Vintage 2025; employment is BLS QCEW (2025 annual, 2026 Q1).

Inclusion and exclusion. A Florida hurricane impact is any HRD row that lists a Florida region with a hurricane category; Nicole (2022), which HRD lists as tropical-storm conditions only in Florida, is excluded. Two HRD rows that span two months (1929, 1933) are assigned to their first month. Declarations are counted as distinct disaster numbers per county FIPS; tribal-only declarations (3 since 2000) are excluded from county counts. Hurricane Debby's 2024 major disaster declaration is typed Tropical Storm in OpenFEMA and is excluded, as are tropical storm emergency declarations. Market research estimates, insurance premium claims and unsourced rankings were excluded.

Region and county assignment. County-level storm counts are not reliable because HURDAT2 coordinates are rounded to 0.1 degree and impacts extend far beyond the landfall point, so storm frequency is reported for NOAA's four Florida regions. A 1991 to 2025 list of HURDAT2 landfall points with the nearest county is provided for reference only; HURDAT2 marks all U.S. landfalls only for 1851 to 1955, 1969 and 1991 onward.

Design wind speeds. For each county outside the HVHZ, CB&C sampled points on a 2 km grid inside the Census 2024 county boundary, linearly interpolated the ultimate design wind speed between the two bracketing FBC 2023 contour lines (the code allows linear interpolation between contours), and reported the minimum and maximum rounded to 5 mph. Points beyond the outermost contour take that contour's value. Miami-Dade and Broward use the fixed FBC 1620.2 values. Results are screening estimates and do not replace local wind speed line maps.

Conflicting numbers. Storm counts differ across published lists because of definitions (landfall vs hurricane-force impact) and reanalysis. This report uses the HRD impact definition and the September 2026 revision; older pages citing 66 Northwest Florida hurricanes since 1851 use an earlier revision (HRD now lists 69). HURDAT2 rates Nicole a hurricane at landfall while HRD lists tropical-storm conditions in Florida; we follow HRD for counts and show HURDAT2 as recorded in the landfall list.

Derived metrics. Shares, intervals, rank correlation, county wind speed ranges and employment changes are computed in scripts/ from files saved in raw/; formulas and input rows are in derived_metrics.csv. Average intervals use 126 seasons (1900 to 2025).

Limitations. Declarations reflect federal decisions as well as damage. NRI Expected Annual Loss is a model built on historical frequency and Hazus exposure and is not a forecast. QCEW counts jobs where employers report, and BLS suppresses construction employment for eight small counties. The 2020s decade is partial. Last updated 2026-10-08.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (26)

• [1] Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 API, Florida, incidentType Hurricane. 1960 to 2026 (refreshed 2026-10-05). Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [2] FEMA. Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 dataset page. 1953 to present. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [3] FEMA. How a Disaster Gets Declared. current. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [4] NOAA AOML Hurricane Research Division. Continental United States Hurricane Impacts/Landfalls 1851-2025 (revised September 2026). 1851 to 2025. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [5] NOAA National Hurricane Center. HURDAT2 Atlantic hurricane database, 1851-2025 (file dated 2026-09-23). 1851 to 2025. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [6] NOAA National Hurricane Center. HURDAT2 format description (Atlantic). current. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [7] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Tropical Cyclone Climatology. 1991 to 2020 normals. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [8] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. current. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [9] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Ian (AL092022). September 2022. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [10] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Michael (AL142018). October 2018. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [11] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Helene (AL092024). September 2024. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [12] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Idalia (AL102023). August 2023. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [13] NOAA National Hurricane Center. Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Milton (AL142024). October 2024. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [14] Florida Building Commission (hosted by International Code Council). 2023 Florida Building Code, Building, 8th Edition, Chapter 16 Structural Design. FBC 2023 (8th ed.), effective 2023-12-31. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [15] Florida Building Commission (hosted by International Code Council). 2023 Florida Building Code, Building, 8th Edition, Chapter 2 Definitions. FBC 2023 (8th ed.). Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [16] University of Florida GeoPlan Center for the Florida Building Commission (DBPR). Final Report: Update and Development of Wind Speed Line Maps for the Florida Building Code, 8th Edition (2023). June 2023. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [17] University of Florida GeoPlan Center / Florida Geographic Data Library. FBC 2023 Figures 1609.3(1) to (4) wind speed contour GIS data (ASCE 7-22, Risk Categories I to IV). ASCE 7-22 maps, data 2022-11-17. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [19] FEMA (OpenFEMA). National Risk Index v1.20 county table (December 2025). v1.20, December 2025 (December 2024 dollars). Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [20] FEMA. National Risk Index for Natural Hazards (product page). updated 2026-01-07. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [21] U.S. Census Bureau. County population totals, Vintage 2025 (co-est2025-alldata.csv). April 2020 base to July 1, 2025. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [22] U.S. Census Bureau. Cartographic boundary file, counties, 2024, 1:500,000. 2024 boundaries. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [23] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, NAICS 23 Construction, 2025 annual averages. 2025 annual average. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [24] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, NAICS 23 Construction, 2026 first quarter. January to March 2026. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [25] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, Lee County, Florida (FIPS 12071) area files, 2021 to 2023 Q3 and Q4. July 2021 to December 2023. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [26] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, Florida statewide (FIPS 12000) area files, 2022 Q3 and Q4, 2023 Q3. July 2022 to September 2023. Accessed 2026-10-08.
• [27] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW release calendar. 2026 schedule. Accessed 2026-10-08.

Tier 2: trade bodies, market research, company data (1)

• [18] Building A Safer Florida, Inc. (posted in Florida Building Commission 2023 code resources). Wind Loads: Impacts from ASCE 7-22 (fact sheet, June 2024). June 2024. Accessed 2026-10-08.