http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01safe.html?ref=weekinreview
Actually, I find this map a bit bland and simple. I think the source info they worked from is one of the FEMA pamphlets. I did finally find the "State By State Hazards" guide from FEMA, which I believe this was worked from and linked it below. FEMA doesn't host it AFAIK, but does publish it. Take California versus Texas. Don't get me wrong, CA's big with a larger population, but Texas is bigger and has more area that experiences these things. There's like a 10 to 15 million person population difference, but that's like 25 to 35 or 40 million so it's still a lot of people either way. Texas weather is downright insane and I believe offers more variety in disasters than California. Even where I live in San Antonio we worry about about hurricane remnants because any major thunderstorm can cause flooding that will wash pedestrians and drivers alike off the road and it's not just crappy road design. I remember when I started driving again (after some years without a car), about 4 years ago and the first time I drove in a major storm again on the highways I saw that people were wrecking right and left, literally every few blocks I'd see someone spinning out of control. Remember, Texas has almost as bad traffic as California and over There's this guy that says that Washington and Oregon are the safest places and has been saying it much longer than that NYTimes article's been out. I know alot of people, myself included, don't put a great deal of stock in Icke and Infowars.com, but he did some interviews with people that are "experts" in the field... like Joel Skousen. A lot of the people, while a bit off in their rants are really smart and focused on areas of study that aren't generally studied by anyone but analysts and actuaries. James Wesley Rawles is one... I've read his material and while he's engaging, I found his religious fervor both a bit stale and somewhat scary. His "anti-communist" and religious rhetoric type statements to me, come across both very "un-PC" and also ignorant. Mel Tappan and Kurt Saxon also felt that Oregon and Washington would be great areas... but from what I gather they had major personality problems of their own, especially Saxon. If one searches for "survival", "prepper", "survivalist" or "survivalism" as key phrases with the state names of Oregon and Washington you'll see quite a bit of information that can be unappealing to some, like stockpiling guns, local militias, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_(survivalism) The only problem I have with considering living in Oregon and Washington is that it is located close to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana's Yellowstone supervolcano as well as the Cascade range; Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams in Washington and Mount Hood in Oregon. It's really a point that can be debated, because there is literally not enough information about these volcanic eruptions to predict whether or not they'll cause problems in our lifetimes or that of any of our descendants that may live there if we do. I'm trying to dig up the FEMA amphlet now, but here's the mapping pages for disasters... their library and map pages really aren't the best navigable, but it's a government resource, so what can you expect? http://www.fema.gov/hazard/map/index.shtm https://hazards.fema.gov/wps/portal/mapviewer http://www.fema.gov/library/ http://www.survivalring.org/community/membership/civil-defense-now/free-books-from-fema/ http://www.survivalring.org/downloads/ OK, so this was produced from hardcopy with OCR. I can't find it on FEMA's site online and it's probably not there. http://www.survivalring.org/pdf/FEMA196.pdf Other good maps: 2000 to 2010 presidential disaster declarations: http://www.gismaps.fema.gov/recent.pdf USA Fallout Map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fallout_map_USA_(FEMA).jpg Assessment of disaster declarations in lower 48 by SCIPP: http://www.southernclimate.org/publications/Disaster_Report_Final_low-res.pdf
