"Is there Anywhere Safe to Live?"

The following is an excerpt from an April 20, 2006 USA Today article

By Elizabeth Weise
April 20, 2006

There was almost a 20% increase in natural disasters worldwide in 2005, according to the United Nations and Belgium's Louvain research center.

Damage reached $159 billion, up 71% from 2004, almost entirely because of destruction from Hurricane Katrina.

As images of devastation flashed onto TV screens, those far from the tempests may have felt some satisfaction that they had chosen homes in safe havens. But not so fast. From East to West, the USA is a patchwork of danger zones.

New England has Nor'easters, the South gets pummeled by hurricanes with distressing frequency, and in the spring, Tornado Alley cuts a great swath down the center of the country.

And let's not forget the deadly blizzards and heat waves in the Great Plains, firestorms in the Southwest and killer floods along the nation's great river systems.

It only gets worse the farther west you go. Salt Lake City is waiting for a magnitude-7 earthquake, exceeded only by Oregon, Washington and Alaska, all in line for magnitude-9 temblors. And the entire coast is at risk for the same kind of tsunamis that devastated Southeast Asia.

Last but not least, mountains up and down the coast are primed to erupt in the next 1,000 years, sending 30-foot rivers of volcanic mud racing down river valleys fast filling up with new subdivisions.

Bad weather is brewing Natural disasters, from tsunamis to hurricanes, have wreaked havoc in recent years. And there's no let- up in sight.

Tornadoes have been tearing up the Midwest and the mid-South this spring. In this month alone, tornadoes killed 36 people in Tennessee. Twelve tornadoes struck Iowa and Illinois last week, killing one woman.

Experts say this year could be especially bad for other natural disasters.

Hurricane season, which begins May 15, is predicted to be more active than normal; the Northeast is especially overdue for a powerful hurricane.

Wildfires have burned more than 2.18 million acres this spring, the beginning of what could be one of the worst fire seasons ever, the National Interagency Fire Center says.

The acreage burned nationwide this year is 3 1/2 times the 586,586 acres burned on average by this time of year.

Fires have been especially bad in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska and New Mexico. In Florida, drought and hurricane debris have officials there worried about wildfires.

DID YOU KNOW?

Mount Rainier's volatile future

Mount Rainier in Washington state has the largest ice cap of any mountain in the lower 48. When it erupts, as it's expected to do sometime in the next 200 years, that ice cap probably will melt, sending a 30-foot-high wall of volcanic mud called lahar down its sides. This loose, gooey mixture of scalding mud can flow up to 25mph. It kills by blunt trauma or suffocation.

Hot nights aremost dangerous

It's not the daytime highs that get you, it's the nighttime lows - - or the absence of them. What kills people in heat waves isn't the highest temperature but the fact that evening temperatures don't dip. The body doesn't get a chance to cool down. The more days with high nighttime temperatures, the more people die.

A cyclone by anyother name ...

A hurricane is not always a hurricane. Sometimes it's a typhoon or a cyclone. To a meteorologist, they're all tropical cyclones -- storms forming over tropical or subtropical ocean waters with maximum sustained winds exceeding 73 mph. But the names change depending on point of origin. It's a hurricane in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, a typhoon in the Northwest Pacific west of the international date line, and a severe tropical cyclone in the Southwest Pacific.

Flash-flood waters shallow but strong

Shallow floodwaters are sometimes the most dangerous.

Flowing water only 1 foot deep exerts 500 pounds of lateral force. In a flash flood, water only 2 feet deep can lift up a 1,500- pound car, which is then pushed or rolled off the road by the 1,000- pound force of the flowing water.

Earthquakes reachbeyond West Coast

The West Coast isn't the only earthquake zone in the USA. Salt Lake City sits on the Wasatch fault line, and geologists expect that it's likely to get a magnitude-7 earthquake in the next 300 years. And New Madrid, Mo., has never been equaled for the number, intensity and size of a swarm of quakes -- 1,874 -- that hit over four months in 1811-12. The destruction ended the town's importance as the "Gateway of the West."

Our crowded worldis more vulnerable

There is one certainty about natural disasters: There are more people around to get in harm's way. The population quadrupled in the 20th century, from about 1.5billion in 1900 to 6.5 billion in 2006. People have pushed into increasingly hazardous settings. We farm on the slopes of active volcanoes, build homes and industries in river floodplains and move to hurricane-prone coastlines. When disaster strikes today, the damage to people and property is magnified because there are simply more people and things to be hurt.

Dust Bowl is amongworst U.S. disasters

One of the worst natural disasters to hit the USA was the multiple-year drought in the 1930s that created the Dust Bowl. Covering more than 100 million acres in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas, the area supported mostly perennial grasses until the beginning of the 20th century. Government incentives and a series of uncharacteristically wet years led farmers to plant much of the region in wheat in the 1920s. When the rains stopped, as is common in the area, massive dust storms sucked up the newly plowed earth, turned day into night, and pushed as many as a quarter- million Americans from their homes. The disaster led to the creation of the Federal Soil Conservation Service.

Source: USA TODAY research and Natural Disasters

Blizzards

Annual season: December through April 1 Winds greater than 35 mph and visibility of a quarter-mile or less for a duration of at least three hours. *Jan. 6-8, 1996 Record snowfalls in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Jersey. Wind speeds exceeded 50 mph, and 154 people were killed.

Lake-effect snowstorms

Annual season: In the Great Lakes, late November through March. At the Great Salt Lake, fall and spring.

Caused when cold air flows across the open water of a large lake and then dumps its moisture as snow at the shore. *Nov. 20-23, 2000 A lake-effect storm named Chestnut by the local National Weather Service dropped 25 inches of snow on Buffalo, trapping thousands in their cars or at work overnight, as well as children at schools or in school buses.

Earthquakes

Shaking and vibration at the surface of the Earth resulting from underground movement. *Jan. 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake, Los Angeles. Magnitude 6.7 temblor killed 57 and caused $40 billion in damage. *Oct. 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco. Magnitude 7.1 temblor killed 67 and caused $6 billion in damage. *March 27, 1964 Good Friday earthquake, Valdez, Alaska. Magnitude 9.2 temblor killed 122 people. Twelve people in Crescent City, Calif., were killed hours later by the tsunami caused by the quake.

Flash floods

Annual season: July through September

but can occur at any time 1 A flood that rises and falls rapidly, usually under six hours, as a result of intense rainfall over a small area. *June 9, 1972 A rainstorm caused flash floods in Rapid City, S.D., killed 238 people, destroyed 1,335 homes and caused $664 million in damage. *July 31, 1976 A cloudburst sent a flash flood down Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado, killing 145 people and causing $36 million in damage.

Monsoons

Annual season: June through August

Torrential rainfall patterns, wind gusts and flash flooding. *Aug. 14, 1996 A storm hit the Phoenix metro area, causing $160 million in damage. Wind gusts of 115 mph were recorded.

Tornadoes

Annual season: Late spring to early summer

Violent windstorms with a twisting, funnel-shaped cloud, usually descending from a large thunderstorm. They can move as fast as 40 mph. "Tornado" comes from the Spanish or Portuguese verb tornar, "to turn." *The Super Outbreak, April 3-4, 1974 In the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history, 147 tornadoes touched ground in 13 states over the course of 16 hours, killing 335 people, destroying more than 7,500 houses and spreading damage across an area of about 2,500 miles.

Severe hailstorms

Annual season: Late spring and summer

Severe storms produce hailstones 3/4 inch or larger in diameter. *May 15, 1995 A storm with hail up to 4 inches in diameter struck the Dallas/Fort Worth area, causing an estimated $1.5 billion in damage and dozens of injuries.

Heat waves

Annual season: Summer

Prolonged periods of high temperatures and high humidity, even at night. Major cities are at higher risk because of the "heat island" effect. *July 13-27, 1995 In Chicago, 465 people died during a massive heat wave in which the temperature rose into the mid-100s and never dropped below the mid-80s. The city's roads buckled and train rails warped.

Hurricanes

Annual season: June through November

The strongest storms on Earth, these begin in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when wind speeds reach 74 mph, but they have been recorded as high as 200 mph. *August 2005 Hurricane Katrina led to more than 1,000 deaths in Louisiana and Mississippi and is projected to cost an estimated $40 billion to $60 billion.

Typhoons

Annual season: June through November, although they can occur year-round

Tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds over 73 mph occurring in the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the International Date Line. *Dec. 16, 1997 Typhoon Paka hit Guam with wind speeds of 240 mph. More than 1,500 structures were destroyed, 10,000 damaged and 5,000 people made homeless. Damage estimates: $200 million.

Ice storms

Annual season: December and January

A storm with large amounts of freezing rain (frequently near sunrise, usually the coldest time of the day) that coats everything with ice that's often heavy enough to pull down trees and power lines. *Jan. 5-9, 1998 An ice storm killed at least 25 and caused $7 billion in damage across much of eastern Canada and Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York. Ice destroyed 130 power transmission towers, 74,000 miles of power transmission and phone lines and 30,000 wooden utility poles. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power for up to four weeks in the dead of winter.

Lightning

Annual season: Summer

An electrical discharge from a thunderstorm. Bolts of lightning can reach a temperature of 50,000 degrees. *Florida, the lightning capital of the nation, has an average of 54 lightning- related casualties a year.

Nor'easters

Annual season: December-March

Also known as White Blizzards, these storms move up the Northeast coast. *The 'Perfect Storm' of Oct. 30, 1991 It wreaked havoc all along the East Coast, bringing hurricane-force winds for five days over a very large area, generating waves up to 100 feet high and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage. It later became the subject of a book and then a movie.

River valley flooding

Annual season: Spring, from snow melt, and summer, from rains. Every 5 to 10 years.

The deadliest and costliest weather-related natural disasters, these usually occur on rivers after flash flooding has occurred on streams and tributaries. River floods develop and reach their peak more slowly than flash floods. In many cases the river flood peak occurs after the rain has ended. *The great Midwestern flood in the summer of 1993 The largest flood in 140 years on the upper Mississippi River basin, it inundated up to 75 towns and more than 20 million acres in nine states, causing 54,000 people to be evacuated and 50,000 homes to be destroyed or damaged. Losses were estimated at $15 billion.

Thunderstorms

Annual season: Spring and early summer but can occur at any time

Severe weather characterized by the presence of either tornadoes, gusts of wind up to at least 58 mph or 3/4-inch hail. *May 11, 1972 Intense precipitation occurred in central Texas when wet air from the Gulf met dry air from the east. A severe thunderstorm dropped 16 inches of rain on New Braunfels, Texas in two hours. The Guadalupe River rose as high as 31 feet, killing 17 people and causing $18 million in damage.

Tsunamis

Season: Year-round, every 20 years

Giant ocean waves produced by underwater earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides or meteorite impacts. Tsunamis can travel up to 500 mph and be as high as 100 feet when they reach shore. Also known as tidal waves, though they have nothing to do with tides. *The April Fool's Day tsunami of 1946 Killed 159 people in Hilo, Hawaii.

Volcanic eruptions

Season: Year-round

Molten rock blasts through the Earth's surface. *May 18, 1980 A volcanic blast blew 1,300 feet off the top of Mount St. Helens in Washington state, killing 57 people and destroying 200 homes, 185 miles of highway and nearly 230 square miles of forest and rivers.

Wildfires/fire storms

Annual season: The dry season, May to January

A quick-moving and uncontrollable fire in a forest or area of thick brush. Can often threaten homes built in wilder areas. *Oct. 25, 2003 The Cedar Fire, San Diego County. Started by a lost hunter setting a signal fire, the wildfire killed 14 people, injured 104 firefighters, destroyed 2,232 homes and burned 280,293 acres.

Source: Natural Disasters by Patrick L. Abbott, 2005; National Weather Service; USA TODAY research