Does the risk of natural disaster shape where you live or travel?
Posted at 5:00 AM on August 24, 2011
by Eric Ringham
(26 Comments)
Filed under: Environment/Energy
The East Coast just experienced an earthquake and may be facing a hurricane. This year the Midwest has been prone to floods and Arizona suffered the largest wildfire in its history. Today's Question: Does the risk of natural disaster shape where you live or travel?
Comments (26)
The possibility of dangerous weather definitely influences our travel destinations. This applies to our destination AND it also applies to the possibility of inclement weather which could affect our home when we are away.
No natural disasters do not have anything to do with where I live. They do influence the type of dwelling I want to live in! I plan to build a Monolithic Dome home. They have survived forest fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, and multiple hurricanes. Floods require special planning.
roul=lucy=tom=? else
///Of course, that assumes there's any sense to be made of Raoul's comments and that he's not just a paranoid nut-case who actually believes those preposterous conspiracy theories.
In any case, Raoul has a right to comment.
The best sense I've been able to make of Raoul's comments is that he's actually a liberal who wants to discredit conservatives by posing as as one and spouting the most obviously ridiculous stuff he can copy and paste from the hottest of the hothead bloggers he can find. Of course, that assumes there's any sense to be made of Raoul's comments and that he's not just a paranoid nut-case who actually believes those preposterous conspiracy theories.
Due to the Yellowstone super volcano, political correctness, Obama, nanny state politics, taxes, and corporate greed….. I am buying an island off the coast of Alaska (Otter Island) and doing the Swiss family Robinson routine.
∑
DTOM
moron bush didn't count the cost of either war in those figures roul.
Hi my name is roul and I'm a moron. I come here to regurgitate talking points I hear on fox news and the other republican propaganda machines. As you can tell I don't even listen to this station. Instead I use this forum like the potheads to spread my agenda. For this I will get to sit next to satan after the apocalypse. Vote to bachmann in 2012 and lets finish what bush started and finally get the apocalypse going!
Maybe the safest place for Roul is under a rock.
Get a grip!
Good lord, no. The only place I know of where there is no risk has cramped quarters, and is six feet underground --and I 'just ain't ready for THAT'.
Natural disaster is across the country so where one lives is irrelevant; e.g.
OBAMA'S DEBT LOAD SURPASSES BUSH'S
News flash: During his two terms in office, President George Bush added $51 billion dollars a month to our nation's debt. President Obama is currently averaging $129 billion a month. Is that not a disaster that Obama says is mostly due to natural disasters across the world and not due to his failed policies.
if they are happening -sure. otherwise - , until my "Crystal Ball" app starts kicking in ... I'll assume that fate visits when it will.
It does influence me, but other issues regarding a region will influence me more. Neighborhood quality, traffic, amenities, etc. are things that define a region on a daily basis, and thus will have a greater affect on my decision to live there.
In the tiresome arena of cocktail party combat, allusion to the hazards of where your opponent lives is a common gambit, right up there with name dropping and school ties.
Yes, there are some things that as someone from the MIdwest just weird me out; like earthquakes. Possibly because I take for granted the static nature of the ground. Scientifically tectonics is super cool and interesting, but not a place I want to live. Floodplains and hurricane areas also not so much. I'd rather take the warning we have for tornadoes, which varies, granted, over the unpredictability of earthquakes and the devastation of floods and hurricanes.
As for traveling, meh. If I really wanted to go somewhere the natural disaster quotient would be trumped by the neat stuff there.
It's like when Ernie sings "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" - fun to visit, rather live in MN.
Your so silly Roul. I look forward to your posts for my daily laugh. The sky must be very close to your head.
Thermoinsulation! That's the ticket Roul! I can sell you some for protection. Along with some wonderful crystals...
The risk of natural disasters absolutely shapes where I live: I used to live about 10 miles from the epicenter of the Northridge (California) earthquake in 1994. After experiencing the subsequent devastation around me, I chose to move to Minnesota. Yes, there are tornadoes here, but you can see them coming, you usually get a little warning, and they hit a very limited area. With an earthquake, you get little choice of how you go through it: one minute, everything is fine, and a split second later everything is shaking violently and may collapse, whether you're in an elevator, stuck in traffic under a freeway overpass, on the 26th floor of a building, in a basement, getting out of your car in a multi-level parking structure, etc. Then you get to deal with the fact that immediately afterwards, gas lines may have ruptured and be catching fire, water mains, etc. may be broken for miles and miles,and the roads may not be drivable (for you or for the instantly overwhelmed rescue vehicles). Tornadoes -- I'll take 'em any day.
Sure.
Minnesotans might wonder why anyone would live in an area prone to earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, etc. But people from other, presumably nicer regions like California or Florida think we're crazy to live up here, siting the cold winters as sort of our own "natural disaster" to deal with.
No place is perfect. The question is: what do you want and what will you put up with.
Americans have migrated to Texas for jobs and a better economic life because of a natural disaster.
The disaster was the result of Obama's policies for the past 2.5 years where he increased restrictive business regulations that cost business over 45 billion more just since he came to office, failed to
create an energy policy to become more independent from foreign oil, failed to pass a budget even_ when he had control of the House and Senate for two years, failed to get one Senate vote for his budget plan 97-0 Nay. failed to secure the border an appointed an Attorney General who refuses to enforce our laws...allows the Fed Gov. to sue it's own states such as AZ for border enforcement..participates in the Fast and Furious plan allowing guns to go to mexico to be used against our own Border Patrol, all in the name of creating a crisis to push for reducing Second Amendment right. pent 870 billion in the stimulus for shovel ready jobs that he admits were not there, a year later....failed to reduce unemployment rate, failed to appoint any cabinet members with any real life business experience and then he appoints CEO of GE as his adviser..GE paid no taxes last year and the jobs they created went overseas. The real disaster is his policies that have all failed..the numbers don't lie and Americans can prepare for worst days by voting for anyone who supports our Constitution and who doesn't appoint Marxists and communist supporters...research Cass Sustein and his wife as well as Van Jones ( now happily working for Soros after being fired upon disclosure of his Truther-communist beliefs.
If any of this is not true, feel free to support your facts....if you can_ Obama policies are_ the greatest disaster in progress.
The upside of living with risks of natural disasters is the bragging rights. "I lived through the Big One!"
I think I'll stay right here in Minnesota. If there's a blizzard, we just stay inside. Tornadoes can be a problem but I've lived all my life here and have never seen one. Sure it's cold but we can survive that. Our winters just make the other seasons that much more pleasurable. As for travel, I guess I wouldn't go to Florida during the hurricane season.
If there is a hurricane or earthquake in the wilderness, with no human around to feel it, is it still a disaster?
Nah. When we went to Pompeii we spent five minutes looking at each other and saying wouldn't it just be like our luck if we picked the exact day and hour for the mountain to wake back up? Then we had our little shivers and made sure we had the batteries in our cameras. We live in tornado country for gosh sakes, you learn not to get fidgety in a crisis, you just learn what you're supposed to do, and if you need to do it, you just do it. Earthquakes? Hurricanes? Plagues of locusts? Interesting photos and great stories for the folks back home. Tsunami? Well, what are you going to do about a tsunami, that's half the planet. You could never go anywhere.
Would I build a home on a spit of sand in Florida, where hurricanes can be expected nearly every year? No.Whould I build in a known flood plain? No. Should I worry about less predictable events like tornadoes or earthquakes? No.
There are no places on the planet where the forces of nature aren't more powerful than human beings, but that shouldn't keep us from visiting, even as we recognize the folly of trying to live there permanently. In this, as in all things, a little common sense can override the incessant fear-mongering of the weather-emergency industry that MPR has so enthusiastically joined.
When I first read the question, I thought of my own situation, but also family in Mass., D.C., Delaware, Arizona, and Japan. Unless you know that there is immenent danger, how and why could/would you even try to live this way? It seems fear based and a little ridiculous. So, "no," Not that certain concerns impact the way I live, but they are more economic-based and I feel I have a bit more control over that than risk of natural disaster, although I may not...
Nope.
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