FEMA Data MCP

A read-only Model Context Protocol server that exposes nationwide FEMA data for building clear, location-aware household emergency preparedness plans.

The first release focuses on durable planning context rather than live incident response:

• FEMA National Risk Index v1.20 hazard profiles at county or Census-tract level

• OpenFEMA disaster declaration history by state or county

• A combined community context packet for downstream planning applications

This server does not produce evacuation guidance, forecasts, property-level risk determinations, or real-time emergency alerts.

MCP tools

Locations can be supplied as a 5-digit county FIPS, an 11-digit Census tract FIPS, or latitude/longitude. The MCP intentionally does not collect or geocode a street address. Coordinate queries are transmitted to FEMA's ArcGIS service; use a county or tract FIPS instead when precise coordinates are unnecessary.

Related MCP server: DeepMap AI MCP Server

Run locally

Requires Node.js 22 or newer.

npm install
cp .env.example .env
npm run check
npm run dev

Health check: GET http://localhost:3000/health

MCP endpoint: POST http://localhost:3000/mcp

To inspect the tools interactively:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

Choose Streamable HTTP and connect to http://localhost:3000/mcp.

Claude Desktop over stdio

Build the server before configuring Claude Desktop:

npm install
npm run build

Add an entry like this to claude_desktop_config.json, replacing both paths with absolute paths on your machine:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fema-data": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/FEMA_MCP/dist/stdio.js"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop launches this process itself, so do not run npm run dev at the same time. The stdio and HTTP entry points expose the same FEMA tools.

Configuration

• PORT — listening port; defaults to 3000.

• ALLOWED_ORIGINS — comma-separated browser origins permitted to call /mcp. Requests without an Origin header, such as normal server-side MCP clients, remain supported.

No FEMA API key is required. Upstream requests have a 15-second timeout and all responses include source provenance and a safety caveat.

Data sources and scope

• FEMA National Risk Index provides relative risk, expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community resilience at county and Census-tract resolution.

• OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries provides federal declarations beginning in 1953.

Risk scores are planning baselines, not predictions. A federal declaration is administrative and historical context, not evidence that an emergency is active. Any eventual planning product must pair these results with current instructions from local emergency management and alerting authorities.

See the architecture for boundaries and the planned data surface.

Development workflow

The project uses a test-first workflow, keeps changes reviewable, and deploys only through CI after merge. Canonical commands are:

npm test
npm run lint
npm run format:check
npm run typecheck
npm run build
npm run check

npm test never calls FEMA. npm run test:live runs opt-in contract tests against both upstream sources. For the National Risk Index ArcGIS layers, it checks that every requested field is published on each layer and makes real county, tract, and coordinate lookups. For OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2, it checks that every field the client selects is published and that OpenFEMA hasn't announced a deprecation, then makes real state and county queries. Run it after changing either client's field lists.

GitHub Actions runs npm run check on every pull request and push to main (.github/workflows/ci.yml). main is protected: changes land only through pull requests, the npm run check job must pass on a branch that is up to date with main, review conversations must be resolved, and admins are not exempt. A separate nightly workflow (.github/workflows/live-contract.yml, also manually dispatchable) runs the live FEMA contract tests so upstream schema changes surface without blocking pull requests.

Dependabot (.github/dependabot.yml) opens weekly update PRs for npm packages and GitHub Actions. Minor and patch bumps are grouped and majors arrive separately; every update goes through the same required npm run check gate. Merged branches are deleted automatically.

License

Released under the MIT License.