
Places in the U.S. Where Disaster Strikes Again and Again - deegles
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/24/us/disasters-hurricanes-wildfires-storms.html
======
protomyth
Hold up, the title is "The Places in the U.S. Where Disaster Strikes Again and
Again" but the first map they show is "Losses in each ZIP code from major
natural disasters, 2002-17" in 2017 USD. This is really misleading because the
a zip code could have one disaster and show up on the map. It would seem a
different type of map that actually shows "again and again" would be much more
appropriate.

~~~
tgb
And since it's based on value, this is highly related to the number of people
living there. There could be a perpetually-erupting volcano where no one lives
and it wouldn't show up at all.

~~~
WkndTriathlete
That's addressed in the actual article to a small extent, but there is value
in looking at both sets of data (total and per capita).

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pc2g4d
Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada seem like the place to be

~~~
framebit
Not exactly. This maps shows insurance claims related to natural disasters,
not incidence of natural disasters. Big states out west have very low
population density as compared to spots east of the Mississippi. If a raging
forest fire or severe storm happens on a big stretch of BLM land in Nevada,
nobody's going to make an insurance claim about it.

~~~
bsharitt
That was my impression as well. While hurricane prone areas are highlighted
well, once you move out of those areas, the map seems to start correlating to
population to a large degree. Granted there are some cities missing and and
some rural areas as red spots.

~~~
cirgue
Charlotte and Raleigh are conspicuously absent.

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awat
I’d be interested to know if anyone living in these areas has had trouble with
insurance rates over this period. I realize many people aren’t fans of
insurance but some of these areas seem quantifiably troublesome to live in
short term.

~~~
bassman9000
[https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-
program](https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program)

There's no incentive to move when FEMA can provide tax-subsidized "insurance".

~~~
toomuchtodo
It's slowly being fixed.

[https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/29/as-congress-
stalls...](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/29/as-congress-stalls-trump-
quietly-overhauls-flood-program-491384)

~~~
bassman9000
I see a lot of noise, and no change.

 _But beyond forgiving the debt, Congress has been unwilling to enact
additional changes._

~~~
toomuchtodo
...which is why the Trump administration is bypassing congress using executive
branch admin powers, which is the first paragraph in the link I posted.

~~~
bassman9000
[https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-
do...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-
trump-approves-kentucky-disaster-declaration-2/)

[http://cullmantoday.com/2018/04/28/president-trump-
approves-...](http://cullmantoday.com/2018/04/28/president-trump-approves-
fema-assistance-for-cullman-hailstorm-damage/)

[https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-
do...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-
trump-approves-north-carolina-disaster-declaration/)

 _Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-
cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help
individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster._

Would be nice to see some info on that overhaul.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Will return when I have more information. I am active in the public policy
space outside of my day gig, and flood insurance is an issue near and dear to
my heart with regards to wasteful federal spending.

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nsporillo
These findings are consistent with another NYT article posted almost a year
ago.

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/29/climate/south...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/29/climate/southern-
states-worse-climate-effects.html)

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RickJWagner
They missed the biggest one of all: Washington, DC.

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danbruc
Relevant xkcd [1]. The map would be quite a bit more informative if it was
normalized by the value of all assets in each region. Population density could
probably be used as a first approximation if such information is not [easily]
available.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/)

~~~
curun1r
One the one hand, yes. On the other hand, you don't need to normalize anything
to see that we should probably stop classifying hurricanes as "natural
disasters" and start calling them something that indicates what they really
are...totally-expected extreme weather patterns.

~~~
danbruc
It's not about what you want to call them, it's about producing a meaningful
map. If you want to show where disasters regularly occur and you want to use
the costs of the damages as a proxy, then you have to normalize it, otherwise
you may just produce a map of the value of assets.

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lamename
Summarized in 1 map:

[https://www.datafoundry.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/11/disas...](https://www.datafoundry.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/11/disaster_map_blog-592x304.png)

~~~
pdelbarba
That's possibly the dumbest chart I've ever seen. Since when are nuclear
plants disaster locations? Might as well label the entire US at risk of
"falling airplanes" or every city as "ICBM target".

In going to assume this just an ad for the labeled data center which is right
in the middle of a drought prone area. Can't run a data center when there are
no employees and no water but I see that droughts and wild fires are
conveniently omitted...

~~~
framebit
Not to mention that 100mi inland doesn't have nearly the same risk for
dangerous hurricane effects as 1 - 10mi inland, and what about forest fires,
and what about icy roads, etc, etc.

~~~
maxerickson
In places where winter weather is normally cold and snowy, big storms aren't
really disasters. It's necessary to plan for them but it's very unusual where
just being in a location during one exposes people to a lot of danger.

~~~
jonhendry18
One risk in that case is if there's a heavy, early snow before the leaves are
off the trees. That's really hard on trees, which is really hard on the power
grid.

That happened in Connecticut in 2011. Heavy wet snow the Saturday before
Halloween. We were without power for a week.

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shkkmo
[https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/)

That heat map doesn't look particularly useful, the numbers need to be weighed
per capita at least to be meaningful.

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madengr
The graph scale needs to be increased an order of magnitude, as $5M in losses
is nothing.

Wait until the Big One hits Sanfrancisco; you ain’t seen nuthin.

~~~
frockington
Good thing they've been frugal and have been cutting spending in order to be
prepared for the next big one /s

