# Map of natural disaster risk: Someone hates TX **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 2, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448 "2011-05-02T04:04:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/21 "2011-05-03T14:12:05Z")
> [@Moonlitherial](#): > > Wow that makes no sense. The only circle on Hawaii is over Kauai and the Big Island has a currently erupting volcano. The circles stand for urban areas or population concentrations, NOT event sites, so that one actually stands for Oahu. The Big Island has smaller towns. ---
**Author:** ![RoniaBorkason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@RoniaBorkason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoniaBorkason)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/22 "2011-05-03T14:50:38Z")
Hmm, I know they only listed so many cities, but no circle at all for Crescent City, CA? The town that gets wiped out every time the islands of Japan even sneeze? ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/23 "2011-05-03T15:13:12Z")
I have to wonder about their comparative methodology as well - they say that Dallas gets “hurricane remnants”. I don’t know about Dallas proper, but here on the FW side of DFW the hurricane remnants are nothing more than a good heavy rain. Hail is another thing I question on this - do they include any hail, or just above a certain size? Because hail can be anything from extra-hard rain pellets to frozen grapefruits. Even so, how many people have been killed by hail? ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/24 "2011-05-03T15:22:42Z")
I well remember when Ft. Worth had one of the [worst hailstorms](http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-dallas/mayfest-hailstorm-15th-anniversary-of-worst-hailstorm-u-s-history) in US history. Don’t think anyone died but it had one massive and expensive impact. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/25 "2011-05-03T16:32:46Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > I have to wonder about their comparative methodology as well - they say that Dallas gets “hurricane remnants”. I don’t know about Dallas proper, but here on the FW side of DFW the hurricane remnants are nothing more than a good heavy rain. > > Hail is another thing I question on this - do they include any hail, or just above a certain size? Because hail can be anything from extra-hard rain pellets to frozen grapefruits. Even so, how many people have been killed by hail? Yeah… having grown up in Houston, and having family in/near Galveston, I’ve seen what hurricanes and tropical storms are like up close, and what we get in Dallas is more in the category of torrential rains with a little wind. I’ve tried explaining the hours and hours of sideways incessant rain of a hurricane or good sized tropical storm here, but people don’t believe me. And the hail is another one… we definitely get more hail than say… Houston or Austin, but probably 9 times out of 10, it’s little dinky pea-sized stuff, and of that remaining 1 time in ten, probably 9 out of 10 of those don’t get above say… 5/8" in diameter. The only real acute natural disaster we have here is a tornado, which thankfully, is pretty rare. Flooding happens in the same damn places when it floods, because it’s a little hilly here compared to say… Houston or New Orleans. If my house floods, someone had better have built an Ark, because my house is near one of the highest points for miles. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/26 "2011-05-03T21:21:29Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > I well remember when Ft. Worth had one of the [worst hailstorms](http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-dallas/mayfest-hailstorm-15th-anniversary-of-worst-hailstorm-u-s-history) in US history. Don’t think anyone died but it had one massive and expensive impact. I was about two miles from Mayfest when that happened, practicing to perform there Sunday. I got one visible dent from a hailstone and that was it. At Mayfest, the hail was so big and so dense that it was breaking through car windows. Then it hit downtown and all those glass clad buildings. I will say that even if the damage didn’t cover that large an area, for the next couple of months, every other car looked like it had a bad case of the pox. When all was said and done, I suspect much of the expense of the hail from that storm was cosmetic outside of the damage done to the downtown skyscrapers. That’s another difference between tornados/hail and earthquakes/hurricanes. Tornados and hail may be common, but they often have very small areas of damage, whereas earthquakes & hurricanes that do anything often affect wide areas. I’d like to see a comparison like the map in the link with the probabilities at the square meter say, rather than addressing the general area as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/27 "2011-05-03T22:16:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > And howcum the West Coast is so damned green when they have such a high earthquake risk? San Francisco had that huge earthquake back in '89 and gets a green circle while Boston, which hasn’t had anything comparable in that time, gets yellow? Especially when you consider the potential _outcomes_ of such disasters, the risk of hurricane/storm in Boston has to be far lower than earthquakes in San Francisco. Probably death rates are also a factor…Earthquake deaths are relatively low for the last 70+ years for [California](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/historical_state.php#california). Building safety and awareness has been instrumental for declining death rates, in spite of a huge population increase over the last century. Most notable: 1906 - San Francisco - 3000+ 1933 - Long Beach - 115 1971 - San Fernando - 65 1989 - Loma Prieta - 63 1994 - Northridge - 60 Lowest magnitude that caused a fatality: 5.3 in Daly City in 1957. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/28 "2011-05-03T23:11:16Z")
Another factoid: The death toll from the latest tornado outbreak (337) is only 12 short of all the deaths in California (349) from earthquakes from 1933 to present. ---
**Author:** ![dccomet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@dccomet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dccomet)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/29 "2011-05-04T18:01:35Z")
The chart was produced by a journalist and a couple of graphic artists, who combined available hurricane, earthquake, and tornado data to produce a pretty chart, but not necessarily a useful one. There are many more natural hazards that were not addressed: tsunamis, fires, volcanoes, floods, not to mention man-made hazards such as weak dams and levees, nuclear power plants (especially those located on faults!), chemical plants, terrorism, etc. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448/30 "2011-05-04T19:18:08Z")
I am skeptical of the credibility of the map. Looking at SE Florida, One of those big cities (West Palm?) is colored maroon, while two cities nearby (Ft Lauderdale?, Miami?) are a more neutral color. I can’t believe that there is that much difference in potential risk at WPB vs Miami (70 miles away?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/map-of-natural-disaster-risk-someone-hates-tx/580448.md?page=1)