The Great Red Comet

Issue # 25: Volume 3

IS THERE ANY SAFE PLACE TO L IVE THESE DAYS?

I have given this some thought, especially recently given the extreme global climate and earth changes we are beginning to witness. So lets have it! Okay, but you may not like my answer.

Those living along the ring of fire may want to consider moving.

Pull out a detailed topographical map of the United States. Now on this map, view all the rings that spread out from its center?

Tornado Alley.  You don't want to live here. More people are killed by tornadoes here than any other natural cause.  Then there is the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. You don't want to live over here. Lots of hurricanes and floods. Can be a dangerous place to live. Then there is the West Coast . You don't want to live there. Lots of earthquakes and volcanoes.

By the time you finish studying the map you could coceivably cover every state of the union. The message had become obvious. It is not where you live that will make the difference when the Earth Changes escalate. It will be who you live with. And yes, this includes yourself, and your ability to cope with rapid change and possible devastation. If you survive a major disaster, such as an earthquake, remember that the emergency services may be compromised, so be able to take care of yourself and those around you for up 72 hours.

 Now we have this article below which was published by the Associated Press.

 Hurricanes, Floods, Earthquakes: Is Anywhere Safe?

Hurricane victims in Florida and along the Gulf Coast have to be asking themselves something survivors of tornadoes, blizzards and earthquakes also wonder: Is there any place you can go that is safe from natural disasters?

The West has earthquakes and wildfires. Move to the Midwest and you could find yourself in Tornado Alley. The Northeast? Blizzards, ice storms and heat waves. Experts say trying to escape catastrophic weather is a little like trying to escape from, well, the weather. Short of building a new Biosphere, it is pretty near impossible to completely avoid quakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards or heat waves.

 ``Unfortunately, if you drew a map of the United States, you would find that at least one and most likely two or three of those happen almost everywhere,'' says Larry Kalkstein, senior research fellow at the University of Delaware's Center for Climatic Research. ``Every place has some sort of vulnerability.'' Kalkstein knows. He lives in Marco Island, Fla., a Gulf Coast town that took a direct hit from Hurricane Wilma last month.

Experts say Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma demonstrate that any search for the safest real estate in America should exclude the Gulf Coast and a good chunk of the Atlantic Coast. The same with Tornado Alley, the area centering on northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. It is sometimes defined as stretching east to the Mississippi River or beyond to Ohio.

That leaves a big chunk of the West and the Northeast, though the geography can be pared down by knocking out fault-riddled California and northern reaches prone to ice storms and blizzards. Heat waves could disqualify even more areas, though not necessarily in the South. Kalkstein notes that hot weather tends to be most deadly in places where people are not used to them: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis. Heat waves are, on average, the most deadly weather phenomenon of the last decade, according to the National Weather Service. A 1995 heat wave in Chicago killed more than 700 people in four days, most of them elderly.

William Hooke, director of policy programs for the American Meteorological Society, says people cannot avoid weather risk, but they can decide the ``shape of the risk.'' For instance: Do you feel more comfortable living in a tornado zone or a hurricane zone? Consider the risks every person faces every day getting into a car or walking down the street and catastrophic weather seems less of an issue. Federal statistics show that 369 people died last year from weather hazards, while 42,636 people were killed in traffic accidents and 1.37 million were victims of a violent crime.

Then there other manmade threats: Cities like Washington and New York are probably pretty high on a terrorist's list of favorite places.

So, where can you go?

Kalkstein, if ``pushed to the corner,'' would choose Santa Barbara, Calif., since it has almost no thunderstorms, no hurricanes, rare heat waves and no blizzards. But it does have earthquakes.

Joseph Annotti of Property Casualty Insurers Association of America picks the Midwest. Yes, there are tornadoes, but he notes that nothing matches the destructive power of hurricanes and earthquakes. ``Even the worst tornado is not going to come close, damage-wise, to even a Category 2 hurricane,'' Annotti says.

Still, the average number of people killed by tornadoes in the past decade is more than twice the number of hurricane deaths: 57 a year versus 21, according to the National Weather Service. That number does not include the more than 1,000 people who died as a result of Katrina. Rade Musulin of the American Academy of Actuaries lists the Northwest, the interior East Coast up the Appalachians, and Utah and Colorado as relatively safe areas.

Another way to look at safety is to compare the U.S. Geological Survey earthquake hazard map, a Tornado Alley map, Kalkstein's heat wave danger zone and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's county-by-county map of declared presidential disaster declarations from 1965 to 2003.

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