Greenville NC-- We get hurricanes, hurricane-force winds outside of the season, and tornadoes. Sometimes the hurricanes cause 500-year floods. And there’s the threat of a landslide off the continental shelf.
But at least the ground doesn’t move and we have mild winters.
Idiots who insist on sacrificing virgins to appease the volcano gods. I mean, really! They are wasting a virgin and messing up the volcano’s plumbing. It’s really two natural disasters in one.
Sheesh!
Sellafield.
Earthquakes, fires, landslides and floods are the biggies here. (Southern California).
Yeah I figured Hawaii’s volcanoes were pretty safe, just the first example that popped into my mind
Tornadoes, but the last major tornado in South Austin was over fifty years ago.
Flooding is a major problem in Central Texas, but the Colorado River Valley is protected by a series of lakes. It’s still a problem for other rivers, including the Guadalupe. There is only one major lake there and the land upstream is too valuable now for it to be bought up to make way for more. Other rivers are completely free-flowing.
Do you remember when all of Southern California was on fire a few years ago? I live right in the center of all those fires. Add in prime earthquake territory (I can see the San Andreas fault from my bedroom window), landslides (as a result of all the fires), smog, floods, plagues of tourists and illegals, etc. 
This is a price I am willing to pay for 350 days of sunshine a year (usually) and gorgeous women in thongs (I kid, honey! Stop hitting me!).
The Lions winning the Superbowl.
It would be the end of the world.
Tornadoes, I guess. But I don’t think tornadoes ever hit the city. We had a tornado warning once when I lived in Michigan, I had no idea what it was til the next day. (A siren went off. The weather was going absolutely insane, within half an hour it rained, snowed, hailed, and the sky turned brown. But I had never experienced anything like that.)
Blizzards? Killing heat waves? Both of things have happened in Chicago.
Tsunamis if an asteroid hits Lake Michigan. (I have tsnuamiphobia.)
Me too. I only hope my webcam gets a good shot before the wave hits and we all go under.
Tornados sometimes pass thru here; in 1989, one passed over my house and uprooted many of my big trees.
Forest fires were killers in 1871 around here in the Peshtigo fire.
Although firefighting techniques have improved since then, there is no way we could fight a fire like that, which one theory blames on a meteor shower during very dry fall conditions. The local fire department is pretty stressed when just one barn catches in fire; imagine if 20 went up at the same time. One can only hope that ecological change (open pastures where once were forests, for example) makes such a fire less likely to spread.
Not much for natural disasters here. We’ll get a hurricane every few years, but usually pretty weak and hitting less populated areas of the province–the rest either go down to tropical storms or veer off the coast by the time they get here. Flooding sometimes in some places, never near where I live though. Nothing much to worry about
People. They are the most dangerous naturally-ocurring thing in the whole jurisdiction. But since we are limiting ourselves to geological/atmospheric phenomena…
(1) Hurricanes – a direct one about once every decade and a half if you average them out, glancing blows or TS-force its a little more often; that’s the Big Mutha threat that everyone’s scared of here, even though you’re more likely to get hit by…
(2) Floods/landslides, whenever there’s a season of heavy rains; however, the slides will moslty affect you on steep or denuded hillsides and the floods in low-lying areas, whereas the 'cane gets you everywhere if it hits the island broadside. And bringing in the third place…
(3) Quake, with or without Tsunami, which we historically get every 75 years or so in average and it’s been that much now; historically, again, has usually affected primarily one end or the other of the island, not the whole place. (BTW, there are warning streetsigns indicating when you are in a tsunami/storm surge danger zone, but there’s a problem with property-owners tearing them down.)
Nearest active volcano is all the way over in Montserrat, and it’s not likely to go “super”; we have had ashfall from it when an eruption coincided with a favorable wind shift. No blizzards, no 100F+ heatwaves, no swarming locusts. Tornadic action only associated with hurricanes/TS’s. Not too bad, as long as you’re in high, level ground and the house is built to take the winds.
Not a lot.
There’s always the good ol’ low probability/high consequence tsunami of course (maybe if volatile New Zealand decides to blow up or sink into the ocean or something dramatic like that). Given the relative closeness of NZ, I don’t think it would be pretty trying to evacuate a city the size of Sydney in a short time. Also, the water would race up Sydney’s many estuaries, increasing the tsunami’s footprint.
More realistically, it’s bushfires. They can be very nasty. It’s moot whether these are natural or man-made disasters, because even the naturally-started fires are worsened in their impact by the methods and locations used to build our dwellings.
We get the occasional severe storm, but nothing like they get in the tropics. These usually just result in a few houses losing their roofs and some trees and powerlines down. Not many injuries usually.
Not too many miles from where I am from, I would say there is a greater threat of damage than there is here. In southeastern louisiana, the MS river could flood easily if it gets enough rain
I live in Houston. The streets flood every time a dog hoists its leg on a fire hydrant.
Hurricanes and the occasional tropical storm are our fun events during the season. Last really good hurricane was Alicia in 1983; went straight over downtown Houston. We’ve had a couple of close ones since then. Our last really major event was tropical storm Allison in 2001. Five billion dollars worth of damage in Houston alone and there are some areas that are still rebuilding from it.
Interesting trivia: Allison is the only storm name retired from the lists (so far) that did not make it to hurricane status.
Actually the New Madrid Quake in the early 1800’s would SERIOUSLY ruin your day if it were to reoccur. It was much bigger than the Great Quake of San Fransisco, but The Mississippi was not all that developed yet, so it was no huge deal at the time…
Then maybe you shouldn’t click this (Chicago Daily News) link:
http://www.kacm.com/Tidalwave.htm
I have been given to understand that the Mississippi ran backwards and formed Reelfoot lake.
Thinking about it some more, you’re right. We had a several-hour tornado drill at school just recently. A sit on the ground of the hallway, illegal in several states touching between people since our school is overcrowed by 600+, facing the wall, darkened corridor tornado drill. It was pleasant if not horrifically handled and terrifying.
Also, sometimes, there are earthquakes. Nothing like the West Cost, but sometimes there are tremors here and there. High Point is the last place I can think of that had them, although that was a couple of years back.
Suddenly, I don’t feel so safe. Atleast we don’t have the Jersey devil or diablo wind.
I remember feeling a small earthquake while living in Greensboro in the early '90’s. Didn’t even know what it was until I saw the news the next day.
Now that I’m here in Florida, Hurricanes have taken on a much larger role in my life. Especially last August.