Miss Puerto Rico is frequently quite concerned about the volcanic action and earthquakes in my old home zone of Washington state. When tsunamis were incoming from Japan she did not understand why I was not extremely worried about the welfare of my relatives. Miss Puerto Rico has never been to the West Coast, or Washington, so it is hard for her to understand that an incoming tsunami from Japan is not all that big a threat. Or that an exploding volcano does not spell doom for all.
During my years in Texas, which is now over a decade, I have had more extreme experiences with Mother Nature Natural Disaster events than all my years in Washington.
Yes, I did hear Mt. St. Helens explode. Yes a little ash reached the valley I lived in, during one of the subsequent eruptions. Yes, I have been shaken by a few earthquakes, one of which cracked the tile floor in the kitchen of my brand new house in Mount Vernon, a place from which I could see the Mount Baker volcano from my living room windows.
So, I was a little surprised, when reading and looking at maps and charts, in an article in the New York Times, titled "Where to Live to Avoid a Natural Disaster" to learn that I moved from the Metro Area with the #2 lowest risk, the Mt. Vernon-Anacortes, Wash. Metro Area, to the area with the highest risk, at #1, the Dallas-Plano-Irving, Tex. Metro Area.
Fort Worth was not mentioned in the way this Metro Area is described, which is a frequent oversight, with most of America thinking this area is Dallas-centric, but, nonetheless, Fort Worth is in the same Metro Area as Dallas.
On the above map you can see the risky areas with the red dots and the less risky with green dots.
Below you can see a list of the 8 Metro Areas with the lowest risk and the 8 with the highest.
Except for Grand Junction, Colorado, all the lowest risk areas are in the Pacific Northwest, with 5 of the least risky being in Washington, the aforementioned Mt. Vernon-Anacortes at #2, plus Bellingham, Wenatchee, Spokane and Seattle.
Meanwhile the state I currently reside in, Texas, in the riskiest Metro Area in the nation, the D/FW Metroplex, also has 5 Metro Areas listed. But unlike the 5 in Washington, the 5 in Texas are the Highest Risk Metro Areas, including the aforementioned area I am currently dangerously living in, plus Corpus Christi, Houston, Beaumont-Port Arthur and Austin.
What was I thinking? Moving from the #2 Metro Area with the lowest risk, despite having a volcano in the neighborhood, to the #1 highest risk Metro Area in America?
I must make plans to move back to relative safety at once.
Like a Barnett Shale natural gas operation in Wise County which was struck by lightning, going into explosion mode, during our most recent storm.
Now, since lightning is a Mother Nature franchise, do we blame this explosion on her and call it a Natural Disaster? Or is this a manmade disaster?
I really need to do some assessing about the wisdom of continuing to reside in such a disaster prone zone.
2 comments:
I just have to say when I went to the Oregon cost for the first time, it was weird to see Tsunami evacuation routes marked. I had to look up the threat immediately.
cd0103, I think the Tsunami signs sprouted up sometime after I moved to Texas. I saw them for the first time in 2004 on the Washington coast in the Ocean Shores/Copalis zone. I think that same trip is when I saw Volcano Eruption Evacuation signs by Puyallup.
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