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earthquakes are ok if the city is built to keep minimal damage by enforcing codes.
I remember watching videos of the eathquake in Virginia/DC area. I wouldnt say those buildings are earthquake proof. Also lots of small ones in the Kansas/north Texas area. Not sure if they could deal with a bigger one. Not a big 10.0 or like you see in Japan, just a moderate one but buildings are made of brick and will crush you inside.
More people die every year from cold weather storms than hurricanes and tornados combined.
Using NOAA's data, the 15-year period studied would have an average annual death toll of about 38. But that average death toll jumps to about 923 when the study's criteria are adjusted to include car and plane crashes that were indirectly attributed to a winter storm. https://weather.com/storms/winter/ne...ms-more-deaths
Winter storms pretty much happen every year, hurricanes especially in any particular area happen perhaps once in a generation.
Hurricane Sandy shows how bad a hurricane can be even when the winds are not much above hurricane-force and there isn't much rain for a major urban area.
Sandy was easily the scariest moment of my life to date
Tornadoss and earthquakes scare me the most.I would not be that concerned about volcanoes because they tend to give warnings before they blow their top.
From most to least dangerous in terms of risk to property and human life (I weigh risk to human life far more significantly):
1. Earthquakes: Major earthquakes are statistically rare (a given place might experience 1-2 in a century), but I place them at the top of my list because of their sheer unpredictability and destructive potential. If you live in an earthquake zone, you know that the Big One will strike at some point, but you'll never know when until the actual occurrence, which can potentially level a large portion of a city in a matter of seconds. I often wonder how Californians are able to act so nonchalantly toward earthquakes.
2. Volcanoes: To put it extremely mildly, ash clouds and lava flows from a major volcanic eruption can wreak havoc on metropolitan areas, but I rank volcanoes below earthquakes because volcanoes often display visible signs for hours or days before erupting, giving people a reasonable amount of time to evacuate.
3. Hurricanes: Highly destructive due to high winds and flooding, but predictable. People often get several days' advance notice to evacuate.
4. Tornadoes: Highly destructive due to high winds. If you have a basement, you can stay there until the tornado passes.
5. Flooding (from a rainstorm, not a hurricane): Destructive but predictable.
6. Wildfires: Highly destructive to property, but there is usually enough advance notice for people to evacuate.
I don't consider blizzards natural disasters. Blizzards are highly predictable and extremely unlikely to cause severe property damage, and as long as you stay indoors, turn on the heater, and wear some layers, you should be fine.
For me it's Blizzards or Tornadoes. Blizzards- i'm from a tropical country, when it snowed in Houston which as nothing I liked it for about 5 minutes then I hated the weather couldn't imagine it
Hurricanes don't bother me, lived through several in Louisiana and Texas, just don't live somewhere that can flood or somewhere close enough to the coast (within your metro area) where wind damage is a problem. You can chill out basically the entire time. I also think on a city-wide basis, besides flooding Hurricanes are by far the easiest natural disasters to city-proof. Many Asian cities don't even evacuate when a Typhoon hits nowadays. Although really strong ones of course will limit what humans could do.
Flooding is only really devastating in rural areas that don't have the funds to manage it or cities that don' plan well, like Houston and Harvey. If you spend enough money similar to what Tokyo is doing for the Olympics but on a much smaller scale, flooding n a catastrophic scale is essentially impossible. The main problem with cities flooding today is legacy infrastructure and government incompetence/lack of funds.
From most to least dangerous in terms of risk to property and human life (I weigh risk to human life far more significantly):
1. Earthquakes: Major earthquakes are statistically rare (a given place might experience 1-2 in a century), but I place them at the top of my list because of their sheer unpredictability and destructive potential. If you live in an earthquake zone, you know that the Big One will strike at some point, but you'll never know when until the actual occurrence, which can potentially level a large portion of a city in a matter of seconds. I often wonder how Californians are able to act so nonchalantly toward earthquakes.
2. Volcanoes: To put it extremely mildly, ash clouds and lava flows from a major volcanic eruption can wreak havoc on metropolitan areas, but I rank volcanoes below earthquakes because volcanoes often display visible signs for hours or days before erupting, giving people a reasonable amount of time to evacuate.
3. Hurricanes: Highly destructive due to high winds and flooding, but predictable. People often get several days' advance notice to evacuate.
4. Tornadoes: Highly destructive due to high winds. If you have a basement, you can stay there until the tornado passes.
5. Flooding (from a rainstorm, not a hurricane): Destructive but predictable.
6. Wildfires: Highly destructive to property, but there is usually enough advance notice for people to evacuate.
I don't consider blizzards natural disasters. Blizzards are highly predictable and extremely unlikely to cause severe property damage, and as long as you stay indoors, turn on the heater, and wear some layers, you should be fine.
Out of all of those though, Blizzards lead to the most deaths, because of how common they are and how many people think they can drive/do activities in such weather.
This is personally why I voted Blizzards as when human safety is taken into context it can get absolutely horrendous. Hurricanes don't kill as many people as Blizzards due at all it is literally 5-50 people yearly, and 100s for Blizzards and other cold weather phenomenon.
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