FEMA Records Show 23 Major Disaster Requests Turned Down This Year, the Most in a Year Since 1978
Denials have taken a median 145 days, versus 43 in 2024. Five came from tribal nations; a February winter storm was denied for four Northeast states on the same day.
Original reporting from public records by Watchman Report staff ·
Requests from states and tribal nations for a federal major disaster declaration were turned down 23 times in 2026 through Oct. 7, the latest denial date in FEMA's Declaration Denials dataset, according to Watchman Report's analysis. That is the most in any calendar year since 1978, when there were 24, and compares with 14 denials in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025. Two requests for emergency declarations, from Montana and Hawaii, were also denied.
Severe storms accounted for 11 of this year's 23 major disaster denials and winter storms for seven; the rest involved fires, straight-line winds and a flood. Illinois and Arizona were each turned down three times. On Sept. 2, FEMA's records show, requests from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island over Winter Storm Hernando of Feb. 22 were all denied.
Five of this year's denied major disaster requests came directly from tribal nations, including a request listed as "Freezing Temps. Tribal Water & Fuel Shortage" in Alaska and a Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe request over a September 2025 fire in Minnesota. Many of the requests decided this year were filed in 2025.
Decisions are also taking longer. The median time from request to denial was 145 days this year, compared with 43 days in 2024 and 58.5 days in 2023. One denial came 251 days after the request.
Denials did not replace approvals: FEMA's declarations data list 58 major disaster declarations in 2026 through Nov. 3, up from 44 in the same period of 2025 but down from 91 in 2024.
Watchman Report downloaded FEMA's OpenFEMA "Declaration Denials - v1" dataset (1,306 records, updated daily) and counted major disaster and emergency requests by the year of their "request status date," which FEMA defines as the date of denial or appeal denial, and calculated days between request and denial. Approved declarations were counted from OpenFEMA "Disaster Declarations Summaries - v2," de-duplicated by disaster number, for Jan. 1 through Nov. 3 of each year. FEMA notes the data are raw and subject to a small percentage of human error. All counts and medians are Watchman Report's calculations.
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