Best and worst places to live
AccuWeather, the independent weather provider service, published an article last week showing the FEMA Risk Maps ranking every county in the United States for their susceptibility to natural disasters, including hurricanes, floods, droughts, winter storms, extreme heat and cold, high winds and earthquakes.
The worst places to experience these disasters are California and Florida and almost all coastal areas except Maine. Texas in recent decades has seen tremendous population growth with many having moved into harm’s way as the state is big and encompasses a variety of disasters.
Unfortunately these places are where people like to live and in the past people have been willing to take the risks associated with living in these areas.
The picture may be changing as the risks keep increasing and now insurance has become a big issue as companies have raised premiums or stopped writing policies in areas that are too risky.
Insurance companies are not government agencies and must show a profit for their stockholders and owners. In Florida it’s the hurricanes and in California it’s the constant fires that plague the area. Texas has seen a 23% increase in insurance premiums, and obtaining insurance in Florida is extremely difficult and expensive causing an increasing abundance of homes to become available for sale as owners begin to flee the disasters and high costs.
The FEMA maps show the best places to live with the least chance for disasters are New England and Ohio. Pennsylvania is fairly safe and the best news was that Pittsburgh leads cities across the nation as a relatively safe place to avoid disasters. Charlotte, North Carolina was second.
That does not mean we are disaster-free, however earthquakes and volcanic activity are low and hurricanes bring rain but winds and tornadoes are usually of the lesser intensity along with winter storms. We do get some heat but nothing like the south and west and our cold snaps are moderated after a few days.
We have had some floods, however flood control has prevented major flooding. Our changing climate will warm us in future years to be more like Virginia.
In the past I have written about our area being the “Comfort Zone,” not too hot or cold or wet or dry; just about right with a four-season climate that allows us to experience a bit of everything but just when a hot spell or cold spell arrives a few days later it dissipates and something different arrives on the winds of our weather systems.
Our area lucked out last week when the smoke from the fires stayed north of our region while many cities in the Midwest reached dangerous levels of air quality.
A few days ago there were 741 fires burning in Canada of which 304 were out of control, burning 16,000,000 acres, double their 10- year average.
Closer to home the US had 35 large fires uncontained and so far this year 41,948 fires have burned 3,434,260 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
The annual average for the last 10 years was 34,936 fires consuming 4,080,378 acres. The US has 12,362 wild land firefighters dedicated to the problem using 696 engines and 109 helicopters.
Let’s hope the politicians keep their hands off the fire-fighting budget as these disasters do not seem to be going away anytime soon.