Is Colorado Natural Disaster Free? (Floods, Tornadoes, Earthquakes etc..) (Denver: home, neighborhoods)

[youngEntrepreneur]

I live in LA area, born & Raised I'm 23 male.

Never really even been anywhere- & we recently had an earthquake here. Just thinking- I think I may want to find another place to live. I want to move somewhere away from all Major Natural Disasters like: Earthquake, Tornadoes, Floods of any kind & Hurricanes.

Do you know if Colorado has any place like this?

And I have another question, Are there any parts that are not only disaster free but also Really nice? for miles & miles just nothing but nice area & not so Ghetto? & full of Crime? Over here in the LA area, you can have a $20 million home & be 20 minutes from really bad neighborhoods. Also, atleast around here- When you start driving away form the city, for some reason the number of Tweekers increase (Tweekers= Meth Addicts) & just Drug addicts in General.

So to live in a place away from all those things would be ideal! But if you only know of Disaster free, tell me about it anyway! please! thank you! And please educate me, tell me how you like your town Colorado or what ever. I looked on Google, Colorado Springs & Denver look pretty nice! And if you don't like something about it, Be honest! I'll be honest with you- I've lived in LA all my life, & it's not all it's brought up to be, I can go on for 35 minutes on why I don't like it here haha

And please don't hold out! if there has been any natural disaster of any kind, please let me know about it-regardless. And if you know of any tools I can use to help me find the area I am looking for, that would be ideal!

thank you!

[sterlinggirl]

Pine beetles are making the forests ripe for a fire that will put California's to shame
From Denver east, there are tornados and occasional big hail
It can flood along any river in the state
If the giant volcano under Yellowstone blows, a lot of this area could be decimated by yard(s) of ash falling from the sky
The resort towns here are like the expensive places in California, and it's common to find meth addicts nearby in the less expensive blue collar communities

On the bright side, there aren't many earthquakes...

[jim9251]

In my part of the state we have these things called avalanches.

[cd1212]

Originally Posted by youngEntrepreneur

I live in LA area, born & Raised I'm 23 male.

Overall colorado is free of most natural disasters. There's an increased risk of tornadoes on the eastern plains, east of denver but not too many live out there.

If you are 23 then check out boulder, ft collins, and denver as these areas are ranked #1 for singles.

Durango also is a college town that is becoming more popular.

As for the previous poster about the yellowstone caldera, there's also the mammoth lakes caldera.
These occur with very low frequency, and are nothing to worry about compared to your system of fault lines and plates in california, oregon, washington, and southern NV.

Meth???? Good question...

[sterlinggirl]

Originally Posted by cd1212

As for the previous poster about the yellowstone caldera, there's also the mammoth lakes caldera.
These occur with very low frequency, and are nothing to worry about compared to your system of fault lines

...unless you consider the fact that it is overdue for a major eruption.

[Count David]

Avoiding earthquakes or natural disasters of any kind won't prolong the likelihood of you remaining injury and death-free.

Earthquakes are very rare here. Colorado gets several tornadoes a year, but the likelihood of you getting injured or killed by one is rare. I haven't seen a flood, but they can happen. It'd be very hard for a hurricane to get here.

We do have blizzards, ice, and snow. This will be the "disaster" that you'll experience fairly often in CO.

Most of Colorado is nice to live in. However, we have feeble attempts at ghettos, and we have crime. There are drugs and tweakers here, but less than I ever saw in CA (I'm originally from CA).

OP, if you are interested in moving out of CA, you need to travel some. That way you can form your own opinions on things and places, and then you can compare them to what you already know.

[zenkonami]

As far as my personal safety goes I tend to be more concerned about getting hit by a car or a bus than I am about quakes, volcanoes, twisters and floods.

[brightdoglover]

If Yellowstone hit its sorta every 600 year eruption, most of the U.S. and maybe the whole world would have a lot to worry about. It's hardly a reason to stay away from Colorado
Actually, except for the eastern Plains and the tornado possibilities, Colorado is nicely free of the major disasters.
Remember, Rhode Island was just a disaster area from river flooding. Things can happen anywhere, but living on top of multiple faults that are ready to go, well, that's another level of worry. With volcanoes, there's monitoring that can usually predict coming trouble- not so with earthquakes. Tornadoes and such, as violent as they are, affect a relatively small area. I honestly think earthquakes are the most alarming and dangerous natural disaster if you're living in an area known to be prone and/or overdue.

[jazzlover]

Colorado is not disaster free. Flash floods are fairly common, and one the deadliest in US history--the Big Thompson Flood--occurred in Colorado. Colorado also has one of the highest incidences per capita of deaths from lightning strikes in the United States. Most of the Front Range and Eastern Plains of Colorado sits squarely in "Hail Alley"--where hailstorms are both frequent and can contain very large hail. A hailstorm that hit the Front Range in 1990 was one of most expensive single storm disasters in amount of dollar damage to hit the United States.

As noted snowslides are a regular occurrence in winter in the Colorado mountains.

Probably one of the most common climate events to cause severe problems in Colorado are droughts. Colorado is a semi-arid state located a long way from maritime moisture sources, so large year-to-year variations in precipitation do occur here. The Colorado climate is vastly different than California's--the two really are not comparable. With the exception of earthquakes and fires, California is probably less prone to natural disasters than Colorado is. As noted, the mountain pine beetle epidemic will likely lead to much more severe and extensive forest fires in Colorado than most living humans have ever seen.

[downtownnola]

Although tornadoes are less common in Colorado than in the midwest, the front range and eastern plains are certainly subject to plenty of severe weather. The farther you travel from the mountains, the higher the likelihood of damaging tornadoes. This tornado hit southeast Aurora (a suburb of Denver) in June '09:


http://realestateyak.com/files/2009/...od-smaller.jpg

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31164820/

5 Tornadoes Sweep Through Colorado Area, Damage Mall - Denver News Story - KMGH Denver

Just one year earlier in June 2008, a major tornado hit Windsor, a community north of Denver, and resulted in $193.5 million dollars in damage.

Denver also had a bad hail storm that struck the evening of July 20, 2009, causing $350 million in damage:
Damage from Denver area's July 20 storm estimated at $350M - Denver Business Journal:

Simply put, nowhere is completely free of natural disasters. But like a previous poster said, I'm more worried about getting hit by a bus or car than getting hit by a tornado.