Community Chat

[stevieb]

@SusieQ_2  It is interesting to think about. Two thoughts though: are the natural disasaters absorbed by these various states all of the same magnitude and are they as disruptive and to as many people as are those impacting California? Also worth noting that the same tax payer base isn't impacted by them all, as is the case in larger states. Also interesting to know would be the timeline for these numbers. I can tell you that I live in one of those states and do not recall major disasters that would add up to the number posted, so again, there is a question of magnitude... The fact is that we and our property are never not at some level of risk, but it's a matter of whether or not one is able to mitigate known and predictable risks based on where they live...

[GingerPeach]

Last time I set my refrigerator to its coldest setting, too, @Anonymous032819 , but I found that iced the lettuce.

Just fyi in case you hadn't discovered that yet.

Be safe.

I'm not on the power outage list but we did lose power for about an hour and a half today.  Not a huge deal when you compare to the dangerous situations faced by many, but I did really savor the cup of tea I had JUST made when the lights went out.

[SusieQ_2]

@gardenman 

I thought I vaguely remembered something about Florida to Maryland. It's good to know my brain is still able to retain a few things, lol.

The thing I remembered most about your post was how surprised I was at the size of CA...and I live here! 

Anyway, nice to see you. I've missed you since BB ended but I do read your posts on the Survivor thread. 

[Cakers3]

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@SusieQ_2 wrote:

@Cakers3 wrote:

I did a bit of research and I'm coming across the top 3 states for natural disasters are consistent in every list.

#1-Texas (also increasing in # of disasters in recent years)

#2-California.

#3-Oklahoma

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Seems to make sense considering that #1 and #2 are the 2nd and 3rd largest states in the US. @gardenman made an interesting post not too long ago where he mentioned how many states California would cover if it were on the east coast. I couldn't remember exactly what he said so I looked it up online and the 840 miles from CA's coastline, north to south, would encompass the area from Portland Maine to Raleigh North Carolina which the article said includes traveling through ten states. That's a lot of area. And Texas is even bigger! Oklahoma is the 20th largest state and Alaska is the largest (as I'm sure most people know), but it seemed to fit in with the topic at hand. 

I vaguely seem to remember Gardenman may have given the example of the area being from Florida to Maryland. I should have looked up his post but I didn't.

So, with that in mind, I looked up the states from NC to Maine and counted how many natural disasters they had in total compared to CA.

Now, no one has ever accused me of being a genius, but I counted (I think) 13 states and am not sure which ten the article included. I thought it would be fair to deduct the three states with the highest numbers. 

This is what I came up with. States and # of natural disasters:

Maine  55

New Hampshire 46

Vermont 43

Massachusetts 47

Rhode Island 22

Connecticut 30

New York 93

Pennsylvania 59

New Jersey 50

Delaware 21

Maryland 32

Virginia 64

North Carolina 58

I deducted New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina and came up with a total of 410. California's number is 250, so if I'm doing the math even  slightly correctly that's (approximately) about 39% less than the states that encompass the same area as CA. 

No, this isn't meant to be a scientific study, lol. i just thought it was something interesting to think about. 

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@SusieQ_2  How many years do the number reflect, though. Certainly those states do not experience all those in one year.  They'd be destroyed completely.

From what date do these numbers begin?

Or did I miss something in your post??

Plus natural disasters encompass a wide range of things; and also the whole state isn't always affected.  Although major coastal disasters can change the shape of a state.

[SusieQ_2]

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@stevieb wrote:

@SusieQ_2  It is interesting to think about. Two thoughts though: are the natural disasaters absorbed by these various states all of the same magnitude and are they as disruptive and to as many people as are those impacting California? Also worth noting that the same tax payer base isn't impacted by them all, as is the case in larger states. Also interesting to know would be the timeline for these numbers. I can tell you that I live in one of those states and do not recall major disasters that would add up to the number posted, so again, there is a question of magnitude... The fact is that we and our property are never not at some level of risk, but it's a matter of whether or not one is able to mitigate known and predictable risks based on where they live...

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Hey @stevieb , no idea really as to the answers to your questions regarding magnitude and taxes. I can give you the link to the site I used to calculate the numbers. It's ~

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-10-states-most-prone-to-natural-disasters.html

The site is World Atlas which I thought should be reliable. The time frame is from 1953-2018 so it covers quite a span of time. 

I feel so badly for the people of CA who have been affected by the fires but when talking about them another thing to consider is the population of state. It would be interesting to see what percentage of Californians have actually been affected. If I HAD to guess, at a population of around 37-38 million people I don't think it would even be 5% and, even that, seems very high. Now...it could also be that I'm way off so don't hold me to that! 

Something else to consider is population of CA compared to all the other states listed. I'm just now looking into that but it seems way too much like work on what should be a day of rest! 

[SusieQ_2]

@Cakers3 , there's much to consider that's for sure. I hope my reply to StevieB answered your question as far as the timeline. Don't ask me any more hard questions though...my brain is starting to hurt!

JK 

[Cakers3]

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@SusieQ_2 wrote:

@Cakers3 , there's much to consider that's for sure. I hope my reply to StevieB answered your question as far as the timeline. Don't ask me any more hard questions though...my brain is starting to hurt!

JK 

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@SusieQ_2   LOL

Actually the World Atlas website was one I looked at and saw the timelines.  The info there regarding top states for natural disasters matched a few others, too.

[gardenman]

People's perspectives on states tend to be a bit weird. I live in NJ, one of the smaller states, and a few years back, while out of state, someone who had a friend who lived in North Jersey couldn't believe that I'd never met their friend. "But it's such a small state. Surely, you must have met them sometime." Uh, no.

There are nine million people living in NJ and their friend lived over ninety miles away from me. I'd never met them. That seemed impossible for them to comprehend. We're a smaller state, but we're not that small that I've met everyone who lives here. 

California is 163,696 square miles while NJ is only 8,729 square miles. If you do that math that makes California eighteen and three-quarters times the size of NJ. So it would take almost nineteen New Jersey's to equal one California in terms of size. New Jersey has more than enough natural disasters here in the size we're at now between noreasters, forest fires, snowstorms, tornadoes, the occasional hurricane, etc. Heck, we even get the odd smallish earthquake from time to time. All in a state that's about one-nineteenth the size of California. 

People tend to forget that not every state is created equal. Bigger states tend to have more reported problems simply because they're bigger. A wildfire in North Carolina doesn't affect New Jersey, but if New Jersey was the size of California, that wildfire could be in New Jersey. If you put California's northern border aligned with NJ's northern border, the southern border would be somewhere in Georgia. A whole lot of bad things happen between NJ's northern border and somewhere in Georgia. Since they all take place in multiple states instead of just one state, no one really pays that much attention. Make an East Coast California though and everyone would wonder why anyone would want to live in such a cursed state.

[proudlyfromNJ]

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@gardenman wrote:

People's perspectives on states tend to be a bit weird. I live in NJ, one of the smaller states, and a few years back, while out of state, someone who had a friend who lived in North Jersey couldn't believe that I'd never met their friend. "But it's such a small state. Surely, you must have met them sometime." Uh, no.

There are nine million people living in NJ and their friend lived over ninety miles away from me. I'd never met them. That seemed impossible for them to comprehend. We're a smaller state, but we're not that small that I've met everyone who lives here. 

California is 163,696 square miles while NJ is only 8,729 square miles. If you do that math that makes California eighteen and three-quarters times the size of NJ. So it would take almost nineteen New Jersey's to equal one California in terms of size. New Jersey has more than enough natural disasters here in the size we're at now between noreasters, forest fires, snowstorms, tornadoes, the occasional hurricane, etc. Heck, we even get the odd smallish earthquake from time to time. All in a state that's about one-nineteenth the size of California. 

People tend to forget that not every state is created equal. Bigger states tend to have more reported problems simply because they're bigger. A wildfire in North Carolina doesn't affect New Jersey, but if New Jersey was the size of California, that wildfire could be in New Jersey. If you put California's northern border aligned with NJ's northern border, the southern border would be somewhere in Georgia. A whole lot of bad things happen between NJ's northern border and somewhere in Georgia. Since they all take place in multiple states instead of just one state, no one really pays that much attention. Make an East Coast California though and everyone would wonder why anyone would want to live in such a cursed state.

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@gardenman   LOL!  You mean we don’t know each other? Granted, I don’t live in NJ now, but I did for many years. Funny that’s what your friend thought.

[gardenman]

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@proudlyfromNJ wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

People's perspectives on states tend to be a bit weird. I live in NJ, one of the smaller states, and a few years back, while out of state, someone who had a friend who lived in North Jersey couldn't believe that I'd never met their friend. "But it's such a small state. Surely, you must have met them sometime." Uh, no.

There are nine million people living in NJ and their friend lived over ninety miles away from me. I'd never met them. That seemed impossible for them to comprehend. We're a smaller state, but we're not that small that I've met everyone who lives here. 

California is 163,696 square miles while NJ is only 8,729 square miles. If you do that math that makes California eighteen and three-quarters times the size of NJ. So it would take almost nineteen New Jersey's to equal one California in terms of size. New Jersey has more than enough natural disasters here in the size we're at now between noreasters, forest fires, snowstorms, tornadoes, the occasional hurricane, etc. Heck, we even get the odd smallish earthquake from time to time. All in a state that's about one-nineteenth the size of California. 

People tend to forget that not every state is created equal. Bigger states tend to have more reported problems simply because they're bigger. A wildfire in North Carolina doesn't affect New Jersey, but if New Jersey was the size of California, that wildfire could be in New Jersey. If you put California's northern border aligned with NJ's northern border, the southern border would be somewhere in Georgia. A whole lot of bad things happen between NJ's northern border and somewhere in Georgia. Since they all take place in multiple states instead of just one state, no one really pays that much attention. Make an East Coast California though and everyone would wonder why anyone would want to live in such a cursed state.

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@gardenman   LOL!  You mean we don’t know each other? Granted, I don’t live in NJ now, but I did for many years. Funny that’s what your friend thought.

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Yeah, they were stunned that I didn't know their friend. "But you both live in NJ. How could you not have met him?"

I had a relative who lived in San Diego for a while and someone asked them once if they didn't just love being able to just get in their car and drive up to LA or San Francisco to go shopping. When they were told San Francisco was five hundred miles from San Diego and an eight to nine-hour drive, they were shocked. Their belief was that since all three big cities were in the same state, they were an easy commute from one to another. Uh, no. It's a big state with lots of space between those cities.