Abstract: Improving disaster operations requires understanding and managing risk. This paper proposes a new data-driven approach for measuring the risk associated with a natural hazard, in support of developing more effective approaches for managing disaster operations. The paper focuses, in particular, on the issue of defining the inherent severity of a hazard event, independent of its impacts on human society, and concentrates on hurricanes as a specific type of natural hazard. After proposing a preliminary severity measure in the context of a hurricane, the paper discusses the issues associated with collecting empirical data to support its implementation. The approach is then illustrated by comparing the relative risk associated with two different locations in the state of North Carolina subject to the impacts of Hurricane Florence in 2018.