My contract is coming to an end, and I’d rather not endure another Massachusetts winter. There’s a fine job opening in Tulsa, which seems like a great place–good weather, low cost of living, friendly to small businesses. But then I read this:
“…the state had three times as many earthquakes as in the entire seismically active state of California.”
and this:
“During the past seven days, the USGS recorded 35 earthquakes in Oklahoma. During the past 30 days, Oklahoma had 200 earthquakes of at least 2.5 magnitude.”
I find these reports unsettling, and I can’t help but wonder if Tulsa is going to last much longer. Am I unnecessarily concerned?
Don’t live there now but lived near there for a number of years. I wouldn’t worry about earthquakes. It’s TORNADOES you should concern yourself in that neck of the woods.
We had (in OKC area right now) two tornados, large hail, flash flooding, and a small quake all in one afternoon a couple of years ago.
The people are pretty nice, tho. Somewhat more conservative than many on these boards would prefer, not Fed friendly, but small business does seem to do well here.
Yeah, two or three years ago, maybe seven…, anyways, it was over 100 for 50 or more days in a row. Parking spaces are rated for shade, not proximity to the building. Dallas, TX is just as bad.
Tulsa isn’t bad. The people are nice and the cost of living is low. It does get somewhat hot but I am from Louisiana so it still feels fairly mild in comparison to me at least. Tulsa isn’t the most exciting city but it has decent bars, restaurants and events if you know where to look. Their zoo is actually quite large and very good.
I live in Massachusetts too and would love to move for the same reason you do. Tulsa wouldn’t be a bad place for me at all. However, as noted, they have ferocious, frequent thunderstorms like you have probably never encountered before. If you get anxious around violent weather Oklahoma is not the place to be.
Who said anything about the Richter scale? It’s obsolete, but earthquake intensities these days are reported on the moment magnitude scale, which was intentionally calibrated to give similar values to the old Richter ones. Seismologists still very much use moment magnitude, so it’s not just something for the dumb reporters (although they may occasionally slip up and say “Richter” when they mean moment.)
Also, a 5.0 may not warrant much notice to Californians but it is a potentially damaging earthquake. In fact Oklahoma had one a few years ago that damaged some masonry structures. A 3.0 is around where a quake may or may not be noticeable. A 4.0 is definitely noticeable but usually won’t cause any damage. It sounds like OK is currently getting a 3.0-ish range quake once a week and a 4.0-ish one once a month or so (although not all in the Tulsa area obviously.)
I agree the induced quake swarm doesn’t pose any serious seismic hazard, but it could be potentially annoying.
The living is simple. And so are the people. That might be good for the OP or it might not. And no matter where the OP falls on the plumpness scale he/she will be about 10-15% percentiles skinnier in Tulsa than he/she was in MA.
Tulsa is a nice city - fairly hilly with lots of trees, some very nice multi-use river trails, and plenty of good restaurants. They have a fantastic aquarium, the zoo is pretty good, and the BOK Center attracts quite a few big names for concerts and such.
Oklahoma gets hot in the summer, but it’s still manageable for the most part (like AncientHumanoid said, shaded parking spots are gold!). The trade off is you won’t be shoveling much snow in the winter. Tornadoes always scare the out-of-towners but they really aren’t that big of a deal. Oklahoma has excellent meteorologists and there is almost always plenty of warning when severe weather or tornadoes are afoot. Tornadoes also do fairly localized damage, unlike a hurricane which covers a huge swath of land.
Also, according the National Weather Service, on average, Tulsa just has 10.8 days of 100 or more annually, if I’m reading their chart right. There are many years when they get zero. Worst year for hot weather was 1936 where they got 65 days of 100 or more. That’s still nothing compared to the hell hole I live in, in 2011, we became the first TX city that got 100 days of 100 or more. But that was our worse year too.
Personally, I like visiting Tulsa, I have a step-daughter that lives there and she truly loves it, and considers it home now. The Tulsa grid also makes it ridiculously easy to navigate and get around. There is a nice river walk, dog park, somebody mentioned their zoo, but haven’t been there myself. It seems like everybody is outside during a good part of the year because the weather is generally quite nice.
Property taxes are quite low too for the state of OK.
If the non event earthquakes really make you worry, don’t move there.
If Thunder Storms scare you , don’t move there.
If the idea of tornadoes is one you got from movies or about Moore, OK, don’t move there. ( Moore has been pretty unlucky. )
I was blown away in the June 8th 1974 swarm. My house was not repaired by me, long story, and I bought a house less than ½ a mile away. It stands to this day & so does the one that was rebuilt. Many many 100 year old houses in Tulsa. The Indians originally lived there because they said there would never be a tornado. Never has been in the original part of the town.
To put it in perspective, in the British Virgin Islands, we had 13 tornadoes ( Big water spouts, not the little ones ) surrounding our sailboat at the same time in 1972.
In reality, you are much more likely to get killed driving to work than by the weather. ( Not as crazy as Dallas but getting worse all the time. )
Woah, woah, woah…good weather? I think last summer they had like 100 days in a row it didn’t get below 100F degrees. They also have ice storms and people freak out if their cars are outside during the ice storm.
The earthquakes are believed to result from fracking. So it’s worth noting that oil wells are not allowed within the city limits of Tulsa.
Tulsa is a rather complex, multilayered place. At the core is some starter dough of old money, both folks who came from elsewhere to lend money to oil well drillers and the oilmen who struck it rich right away. They wanted to ensure a proper city, with a philharmonic orchestra and a good university and nice houses that looked like they belonged in Philadelphia Main Line suburbs. The older residential areas and River Parks are quite pretty and not at all what you probably picture Oklahoma looking like.
Postwar Tulsa grew with many of the same industries and patterns as other Sunbelt cities, like Dallas or Albuquerque. One oddity was the fundamentalist preacher industry that took hold there, with folks like Oral Roberts and James Hardesty running large enterprises. That gave the place an uptight, Bible-thumping character that only began to ease in the 1980s, about the time I moved away.
I always found it a very clean and pleasant city, and might have stayed had family life been a more important criterion than excitement.
Nitpick: the earthquakes are believed to result from wastewater injection wells. These are where various waste fluids are pumped down into depleted oil reservoir rock for disposal. A small portion of it is leftovers from fracking, but most of it is “produced water” which is water that occurs with the oil and has to be separated and disposed of. It’s just a byproduct of oil production in general, not fracking specifically.
