Natural Disasters

This summer’s natural disasters have been par for the course. Just like clockwork, we’ve had wildfires, tropical storms and flooding — with likely more such events happening between now and the end of the season.

And even as these events occur with numbing regularity, it seems that year after year we hear the same stories of people being caught up in nature’s wake. No matter how much effort officials put into evacuation planning and alerts, not everyone hears the message — or “gets it” if they do hear it.

Some states such as Florida and California have worked to build programs that provide explicit guidelines for local officials to follow during evacuations. For example, California’s guidance urges communities to rely on the federal warning system so that alerts can reach the greatest number of people most quickly — usually through cellphone alerts. Local officials are routinely reminded that “incomplete or imperfect information is not a valid reason to delay or avoid issuing a warning.” When time is of the essence, the “20-80 rule” of information is better than an “80-20” ratio.

The problem is, research shows that many people aren’t inclined to act on these alerts. Typically only about half of those located in mandatory evacuation zones actually leave before hurricanes hit. For wildfires the percentage of people who comply is higher, but still far too many ignore the orders

Why do people stay rather than leave? Research finds a variety of factors at play, including:

Health problems or disability issues that make it difficult for some people to evacuate
Lack of transportation
Skepticism about the level of danger
Concern about leaving property unattended
The inability to accommodate pets, livestock or animals such as horses

Wildfires make for particularly challenging situations because they can quickly shift direction with very little warning. Rural and remote towns with fewer resources and fewer roads face particular challenges. Often the main evaluation routes are narrow, two-lane thoroughfares that can’t handle the sudden influx of traffic when thousands are being directed to leave the vicinity.

Flash floods can also hit without warning, but with hurricanes it’s often easier to plan for evacuations because typically there are several days’ warning before exit routes will need to shut down.

Florida has experimented with various tactics to improve evacuations by opening emergency shoulders to highway traffic, adding emergency roadside services on major evacuation routes, and posting more cameras and message signs to alert drivers to changing traffic conditions and other developments.

Sending a single unambiguous message from local officials is the best policy regarding evacuations. Offering “options” can create confusion and lead people to pick the option that appeals most to them personally — which might not be the safest one. Whatever the communication, it must be definitive and precise. Otherwise, the whole evacuation effort can go sidewise.

Lest anyone become complacent about the dangers that natural disasters can pose, watch this terrifying “you are there” dash cam footage of a resident of Fort McMurray attempting to escape the wildfires that engulfed a portion of that Canadian city in 2016. There’s no news anchor voiceover … no ominous music in the background to add “drama” … just the gripping footage as documented by the camera. Viewing it once a year is enough to become “scared straight” about natural disasters, all over again.

After several years of relative calm, suddenly we’ve faced some pretty significant natural disasters in North America – from the hurricanes that have devastated Houston and other cities in Texas, Louisiana and Florida to earthquakes in the vicinity of Mexico City.

Certainly, when it comes to hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, floods and fires, some cities are more prone to these natural disasters than others.

Acting on that hunch, Trulia, the online real estate service company, has analyzed federal disaster area data to prepare maps that show the U.S. regions and the metropolitan areas within in them that are most susceptible to suffering a catastrophic event of this kind.

As it turns out, most metropolitan areas are at a high risk for at least one of the potential natural disasters – although thankfully none are at a high risk for absolutely everything.

The Trulia maps show these broad contours:

California and other western regions are at a higher risk for earthquakes and wildfires.
Hurricane risks are highest in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
Flooding risks factor into the Florida/Gulf Coast regions as well, but they also stretch up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
Tornado risks are highest in the Plains states, portions of the Great Lakes states, plus the Central-South region of the country.

What does the Trulia analysis tell us about the large urban areas that are “safest” from all of these natural disaster risks? Trulia finds them in places like Ohio (Cleveland, Akron and Dayton), in Upstate New York (Buffalo, Syracuse) and other parts of the Midwest and inland Northeast.

Looking at the various housing markets across the United States, here’s Trulia’s list of the ones that are, on balance, the “safest” from natural disasters:

#1. Syracuse, NY
#2. Cleveland, OH
#3. Akron, OH
#4. Buffalo, NY
#5. Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick, MD
#6. Dayton, OH
#7. Allentown, PA
#8. Chicago, IL
#9. Denver, CO
#10. Troy-Warren, MI

Of course, being safest from natural disasters doesn’t account for the dangers from “man-made disasters” — as former Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano euphemistically labeled the other kinds of catastrophic events.

For the riskier places viewed from that standpoint, one might look to the most “iconic” metro areas such as Washington, DC, New York City and Boston as the likelier targets.

Plus, with North Korean nuclear weapons development and saber-rattling being prominent in the news of late, Honolulu, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, OR might also make it on that list.

Speaking for myself, as a resident of the region just 50 miles east of Washington, DC and in light of our prevailing west-to-east wind and weather patterns, the possibility of encountering radioactive fallout from a nuclear strike aimed at our nation’s capital has always been a really fun scenario to consider …