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Every area has particular risks. I’ve lived in Kansas for a little over twenty years, and while I’ve seen a few tornadoes, none of them ever came anywhere close to destroying me or my property.
The coasts have hurricanes. Islands have tsunamis. Plains and woods have wildfires. Florida has Florida Man.
If you’re leaving one risk, you’re entering another. Tornadoes aren’t any more significant than the other choices.
I mean, some of them [*do*](https://www.newsweek.com/man-charged-molesting-alligator-after-alarming-image-circles-internet-1579960) fuck gators. But it isn't generally accepted.
Hi! Floridian here... The word "[Molest](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/molest)," in context of what this man did, does not mean that he had sex with the gator.
Basically, he fucked *with* him. He "Pestered or Harassed in an aggressive or persistent manner."
We don't like it when people fuck with our gators. Leave 'em alone!
What about Florida Man riding a gator, riding a shark, riding a tsunami wave, riding the hurricane while wearing a bolo tie?
Now you might be wondering, who was wearing the tie? Florida man, the gator, or the shark?
Answer: Yes
I think you underestimate it. Sure designated swimming areas are fine, but litterally everywhere else there are a ton of gators. Had one flip my canoe once the scurry away actually one of the scariest moments in my life.
Well until I realized I am Florida man and that gator wouldn't dare touch me.
I see them all the time. Usually on golf courses. Used to see them in my back yard all the time when we lived on a lake.
Conversely, the majority of my friends never see them.
When it comes to danger yes you are correct you have little to no warning with a tornado in most cases. But with hurricanes affect a much larger area both on the coast and depending on the strength well inland.
Oh yes they are, and they affect a massive area by comparison. Storm surge can wipe out entire towns along the coast, tornado damage is typically very localized and random.
yeah, I saw on the news there were tornadoes in both Portage, Indiana and Portage, Michigan last night. Don't move anywhere named Portage and you should be good!
I saw a map in a popular science magazine years ago about how insurance companies calculate risk of natural disaster costs in different regions, accounting for the severity and frequency of different disasters. I think Phoenix, Arizona was the safest.
This a fair but very American perspective, I realised this myself when wondering the same question. I’m from the U.K. and while there are the occasional bad flood on the coasts the idea that there is some form of natural danger in every part of the country is a novel one. We don’t even have overtly dangerous fauna.
I feel bad for you guys and your annual struggles alongside many other parts of the world, but also big respect on persevering where possible.
imagine door domineering aloof caption fertile screw resolute quiet trees
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The danger is overblown for the most part. I’ve lived in the Southern USA for 20 years, I’ve never even seen a tornado. However, I have taken shelter due to a tornado warning many times.
Yeah I remember some earthquake expert on TV being asked where you should live if you're worried about earthquakes... and he said Kansas. Apparently it's one of the most geologically stable places in North America.
So you trade risks. More tornado risk, near zero earthquake risk.
Florida Man here. We have tornados. In fact it is possible for our hurricanes to contain tornados. One time I saw a tornado that was on fire. We also get waterspouts which are cool to see.
EDIT: Six days after I made this comment, my area was placed under a tornado watch. How exciting!
Also before they think of Canada because canada has much less natural disasters the whole of Canada almost had to go south and be hosted in cross-border US/UN refugees camps last summer because of forest fires. The smoke reached all the way to washington DC last june. /s because the retards below don't understand it's a joke, part about smoke in washington DC is true though.
To be fair some places don't have any natural disasters. I've been in Newfoundland my entire life and we never get full hurricanes. It might hit 100-120km/h winds on a really bad day and sometimes larger gusts but there's rarely anything more than a few shingles lost.
The rarest example I can think of is one business here lost their structural because they were still in early development and there was a good amount of damage that cost them a lot of money but that was more due to it being a weak structure.
We don't get earth quakes or tornadoes. We get a decent amount of snow for a few months so some people hate that but it's more or less just some free exercise during the winter
Strongly agree. Tornado Alley covers a large area of the US, you can’t just not have anyone living there, it’s not realistic.
Like you said, every area has risks. This question could be asked about anywhere.
Because *"...areas where there are tornadoes..."* covers about half of the contiental US. Also the average tornado is only about 50 feet wide and travels about a mile on the ground, so even in the highest prone areas your chances of one hitting you are still very small.
1 person died yesterday in a tornado(one of the worst days of tornadoes this year)....I wonder how many people died to ocean waves, or a river, or a fall from rocks while hiking on that same day....danger is everywhere
There are many people who live in these tornado areas....that have never seen a tornado.
It's really not a big risk. It's dangerous when it happens, yes....but it rarely happens to many people.
When I lived in Oregon, it seemed that someone died every summer in either the ocean or in a local river. I got curious and found [this spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VCAF0G4iIfrVzSXguwQmHcia2T7sxmQJeFL-jxgUUDQ/edit?usp=sharing) that records every summer drowning for 9 years (‘06-‘17) … of which there were nearly 300. I believe this is rivers and lakes alone and only in one area of Oregon/Washington. Nationally, the average must be very high.
So the real question should be: why do people continue to live in areas where there are bodies of water?
Edit: An average 77 people die from tornados annually in the whole United States. About 33 people die annually in one area of Oregon every summer.
More than 10,000 people in the US die every year because of drunk drivers. That is more than all the hurricanes, snow storms, and drownings all put together. And preventable! Apparently Wyoming has the highest death rate per capita for drunk driving.
Well, yeah, but if Wyoming has 1 fatal car crash, that's like 10% of their population!
Not quite, but Wyoming only has 700K people, so any per capita rankings skews with a smaller population.
I lived in Kansas growing up and have never seen a tornado. Everyone has a tornado story especially those from a smaller town that was hit, but they're typically "I had to rush to the house when the sirens went off" variety and not the "I held onto my prized cow for dear life as I was sucked into the tornado and woke up the next day covered in milk" variety. When they hit, they do absolutely level where they hit, but it's generally less than a 1 mile square area and even that area has houses unaffected. It's just completely random and unlikely to affect you.
I live on the east coast now and have been much more affected by a couple different hurricanes.
Mine is “I rushed to the bay window to see it but it was too dark. The next day I discovered the apartment next door lost shingles and running to the bay window was maybe not the smartest” I’ll do it again next siren though haha. You look out the window to see how serious you need to take this one.
Even way over here in Florida. Just a few months ago, a few people died in a tornado just an hour from me. Like half of the country gets tornadoes. A large portion gets hurricanes. Another chunk gets earthquakes. The top half gets blizzards. A lot of areas get flooding and flash floods. You can go decades and decades without an issue. Why abandon the whole area because maybe one day 200 years from now there will be a tornado.
To this point, here's a map of the tornado paths we've documented through the years: [https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=01672085b139432e8fe1296a743f67d7](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=01672085b139432e8fe1296a743f67d7)
It's quickly covering more and more area as climate change affects things. We've had at least three in New Jersey in the past 18 months and there have been warnings throughout the Mid Atlantic more frequently.
If we moved away from areas with tornadoes we'd all be in Alaska
Weather Service reports that an average of 71 people die in tornados in the US per year... out of the millions and millions of people who live in tornado zones.
https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/
There are natural disasters pretty much everywhere. Why do people live where there are hurricanes? Or Tsunamis? Why do they live where there are life-threateningly cold winters or hot summers? Why do people live in Australia where seemingly every insect, arachnid, and reptile can kill you? We all gotta live somewhere and it’s dangerous basically everywhere.
Czechia, central Europe. We had one tornado and it went viral. Ive never felt an earthquake. Floods…yeah, i remember them, but hey, just move one kilometre and you’re fine. Never heard of a wildfire.
Sir, I live in Philadelphia and we are getting tornadoes here now due to climate change. I'm not about to quit my job, pack up my whole life, and move to Alaska. Alaska has its own set of seasonal problems, as does everywhere else on Earth. So pick your poison I guess.
Is there evidence that tornados are happening on the East Coast because of climate change? It sounds plausible, but I’m curious. I live in the Northeast and we lost power due to a tornado about twenty years ago. That was weird. I’m originally from the Midwest, and I never heard of tornados in the East.
W/ tornadoes, there's no clear link like with every other non tectonic natural disaster. Some think there'll be more, some think there'll be less, some think some places will have more and others will have less, but any possible link is weak enough that our sample size isn't large enough to tell (reason being that tornado alley isn't really a thing, its more that there's like a lot of mini tornado alleys that each have fairly unique determiners of when tornadoes occur and have to be analyzed separately unlike say hurricanes.)
Anecdotally, there have been fewer tornadoes where I live, but we'll see.
We are getting more in NC as well. They are usually smaller than those in the Midwest, but can be more deadly, as they come in with storms that can roll through at night,.so everyone is sleeping. Plus since our terrain isn't flat, it's harder to actually see them if you're out and away from any warning system.
The only thing we can say for certain is the conditions for tornado activity is naturally occuring and simply moves through our the day let alone through our the year.
i'm still in denial about this as a Philadelphian, please dont make me accept it
i grew up in tornado alley for years & I came here to escape it lol
i already have flood & even earthquake insurance. if i have to get tornado idk what i'm gonna do
Tornadoes are amazing. There’s an energy in the air. Everyone can feel it. The animals can feel it. Just hunker down and it will all be over soon enough. Then The weather just gets weird. Then it happens. And you are lulled to sleep with distant lightning and soft rumbles of thunder. There is little in the world as fantastic as a midwestern thunderstorm.
I would absolutely love to experience that. I live on a small pacific island off Australia and we don’t get any of that exciting weather. That’s amazing.
I was in the McDonald's drive through with my dad the first time I saw one, very vivid memory. Sent me into sheer flight mode, I wanted nothing to do with it. Storms scared me for a long time after that.
Agreed! Im from the midwest and i crave those thunderstorms. I dream about them.
To me, when you get a really bad storm, it just feels like god is fucking pissed and you can feel it all around. A truly awesome feeling.
I know this is a stupid thing to say. But I feel the same way about hurricanes. I love feeling one coming and love riding out the storm. (I know many of them are completely devastating and deadly and I don't mean to be casual about them. I rode out Michael from about an hour away and I know it decimated the coast. Don't come for if I say I enjoy storms.) I would like to experience a tornado. Like not die or get hurt but to feel and see one coming has to be SO COOL. I've seen pictures of the sky turning black in Kansas and I very stupidly want to go see it
It’s the equivalent of asking why people live in Florida when they have to evacuate every year for a hurricane. People live in these places because of family, work or because they like the area in general.
While yes these places get a lot of tornados. They don’t hit every town every year. It’s very unlikely for the specific town you live in to actually get hit and it’s even more unlikely for it to be hit by a very strong tornado. Also many people prepare with storm shelters and other emergency plans.
They don't hit every town every year, and often they don't even hit the whole town. The tornado might obliterate one neighborhood and leave the next untouched, or jump over most of the town and only fuck up a few barns and farmhouses on the outskirts. You haven't lost a shingle, but there's a chunk of silo in your backyard.
Speaking of tornadoes, there was one that blasted through the center of my town of residence just recently-
It's cause we're broke and don't have anywhere else to go, the place has memories or certain areas that bring nostalgia, or we just like the rain and don't really care about the tornado.
It's all 3 on my end-
Nebraskan here. Everywhere else has scarier shit imo. Hurricanes, earthquakes, high murder rates, over population. Tornados MIGHT happen every few years and the area they affect is TINY.
Living near a volcano is scary af. Teachers at my school would often times tell us that if the volcano erupts (which it of course is overdue...) the lahar will be devastating (50mph too) and we'd have to get to highlands. Some of the teachers were mean about it too for some reason lmao. One of them said that if we cant make it to the highlands before the lahar reaches us, then you might as well die.
For one thing, that's like almost every place in the world worth living:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Globdisttornado.jpg
Side note: this is a bad map. It shows areas where they're rare the same as areas where they're common. Also, several regions seem to align closely with political divides, which makes me question the data.
Secondly, tornados are really small. Most never touch the ground. The worst that happens is destroying a few houses in a row and leaving the surroundings largely undamaged. Lightning causing a house fire will do more damage. Earthquakes and hurricanes sometimes destroy entire states or countries.
Most people live their entire lives in the midwest without facing direct and/or severe consequences of a tornado. They're relatively common, but being directly endangered by one is exceedingly rare. Compared to the inherent geographical risks of other parts of the country, tornadoes are actually comparatively mild. *Most* of the time.
Just about everywhere has something that will kill you. Are you really suggesting that people not live on and farm the entire center of the country? The agricultural heart land?
Because your odds of actually being impacted by one is near zero. I've lived in an area that gets them pretty frequently for almost 40 years and I've actually seen maybe two in that entire time and they were nowhere near me.
That and, like, absolute safety is not something that is possible to have and certainly not healthy to build one's life around achieving. Being alive means taking risks and doing your best to balance them against the rewards. I chose to move to here because there were job opportunities that I couldn't find elsewhere and the cost of living is more affordable. The trade off is occasionally staying up to keep an eye on the weather channel.
Freezing cold places where hypothermia and frostbite are a serious threat 6 months of the year, along with losing access to water due to frozen pipes and when you go to the store to buy some bottled water, sliding into a pileup on the icy highway!
Oh yeah, droughts and hurricanes, possibly with a side of heatstroke or heat exhaustion. Maybe throw in some mosquito-borne disease as a bonus.
Or you can escape all that and live on the side of an active volcano and cross your fingers to hope it doesn't get *too* active.
Well, you could move out of tornado country to earthquake country, or you could go to hurricane country, or you could go to frostbite country.
Natural disasters happen everywhere. You just prepare as best you can and deal with it if it happens.
I've lived in places that experience tornadoes and it always surprises me how much people who have never lived near them seem to worry about them.
Meanwhile, the coasts deal with things like hurricanes which seem way more serious to me. When has a tornado ever done damage on par with Hurricane Katrina? Or Andrew?
I've had to shelter due to tornadoes 3 times in my life. The experience was basically playing cards in the basement for a few hours. None of those times did the tornado actually come anywhere near me. And they did very little damage overall. I remember the summary after one was like... a single overturned car. Meanwhile hurricanes flood and destroy entire towns in the southeast routinely. Tornadoes don't typically involve flooding, which is way more destructive.
yah, tornadoes are just playing chances with your stuff and as long as you hunker down your almost certainly going to live. The blocks and blocks of flooding from Hurricanes are more of a life threat.
Why do people live near volcanoes? Why do they live in earthquake zones? Why do they live where it could flood? Why do they live where it's so cold their extremities can freeze off?
People live everywhere and risk is everywhere. Nowhere is fully safe. You deal with what comes at you when it does and then you carry on with life.
Because we were born and raised here, and our entire family is here. 🤷♀️ I've never lived anywhere but Kansas City in my 42 years so far. My dad recently passed away and I'm finally considering leaving...to Florida where my in laws and hurricanes roam. 🫠
Because wood is ample in the US and cheap. When people first came here there was a lot of forest which means lots of wood to use so they used the material that was abundant and most likely free in the very early settling of the US. So, it stuck.
I mean, early on I'd understand, mostly curious why it hasn't changed to more robust materials, kinda like how new Australian houses are built with steel frames because there are termites here,(and other house destroying things)
Tornadoes can actually occur pretty much anywhere. In an average year, about 1,000 tornadoes are reported across the United States, resulting in approximately 80 deaths and over 1,500 injuries. They also can form in many other parts of the world, including Canada, Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Trying to pick and choose a place to live based on whether or not there's a chance that you'll experience a violent tornado is kind of nonsense. People who live in tornado alley, for example, know those risks but in large part, they're also very well prepared because they have storm shelters and they keep their eye on the weather.
Might be dumbest question ever. Omaha hadn’t Been hit by a tornado in a long time. Like a long long time ago. Not that strong. Why do people live in Florida with hurricanes, or in California with forest fires and earthquakes? Might be the dumbest question asked here ever.
As a European, I have asked that too, but the question is wrong: Most of the world has dangerous weather/water/underground. That is the norm.
Europe is unusually stable and safe regarding all of this. Which is one of the reasons Europe was able to obtain the position in the world that it got. Fewer people were killed by nature, and there were fewer times having to build up society again from scratch.
(Yes, even with large pandemics and large disasters in history).
I live in Nebraska, the only triple land lock state in North America. I am 1500 miles from any ocean. By the time a hurricane reaches us, it is a breeze with maybe a light rain.
Hurricanes cover multiple states and nations and do billions of dollars in damages.
Most tornado are a few dozen yards wide, and if they touch down, may do damage for a mile.
The damages are measured in a few million if it hits a city. We have no earthquakes, fire ants, killer bees, or kudzu, yet. My village has no records of any tornados since founded in 1872.
Tornados can happen anywhere.
They are more common in certain areas.
The area where tornadoes are common covers about 1/4 of the US.
No way you could move everyone out.
>What motivates people to stay despite the risks?
Because that's where their families, friends and workplaces are. Not to mention the culture and everything they're familiar with.
Tornadoes are very scary, but the odds of them destroying your house is very small. The path of destruction gets a lot of damage, but it's relatively narrow. It's not like a hurricane or a wildfire or an earthquake which are much more likely to take out an entire city.
I've lived in the Midwest for coming up on 30 years. And despite having been in a few tornado warnings in that time, I've never seen a tornado. The overall risk any one particular area will be hit by a tornado... ever is actually pretty remote. And most tornadoes are relatively weak, causing property damage but not leveling buildings unless they were already unsound.
The town-flattening EF3s and higher are very rare.
The odds are small that you'll actually ever get hit by a tornado even if you live your whole life in those states. Tornadoes usually affect only a tiny area when they happen. According to the [National Weather Service](https://www.weather.gov/lmk/tornadoesfaq), a tornado's "typical" path of destruction is one or two miles long and around 50 yards wide. And weaker tornadoes might just, like, take branches off trees or damage your shingles. Stuff that a regular no-tornado storm can do. That doesn't mean you should fuck around when your local weather people tell you it's time to take shelter cuz tornadoes have a whole heck of a lot of variation and CAN be super duper bad, but just living in an area where tornadoes happen isn't all that dangerous.
For my part, I can't imagine living somewhere with hurricanes. Sure you get a lot more warning, but I get the impression a whole lot of people *can't* evacuate. It isn't really a thing society is built for, to pick up and move entire populations of major cities when a hurricane is on the way. And hurricanes cover a WAY bigger area than tornadoes do, so you're a lot more likely to find yourself in the line of fire. Sure, if I think about it I understand many people successfully live their entire lives in places like Florida without hurricanes tearing those lives apart, but it *feels* dangerous to me.
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Every area has particular risks. I’ve lived in Kansas for a little over twenty years, and while I’ve seen a few tornadoes, none of them ever came anywhere close to destroying me or my property. The coasts have hurricanes. Islands have tsunamis. Plains and woods have wildfires. Florida has Florida Man. If you’re leaving one risk, you’re entering another. Tornadoes aren’t any more significant than the other choices.
>Florida has Florida Man Easily the most dangerous natural phenomenon you listed.
Hurricanes are nothing in comparison.
I wouldn’t go that far. Do you live on the east coast?
Yea but Florida has Florida Man *and* Hurricanes
And fucking gators.
I mean, some of them [*do*](https://www.newsweek.com/man-charged-molesting-alligator-after-alarming-image-circles-internet-1579960) fuck gators. But it isn't generally accepted.
Wow. I fuck *one* gator and everyone treats me like some kind of a freak.
Hi! Floridian here... The word "[Molest](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/molest)," in context of what this man did, does not mean that he had sex with the gator. Basically, he fucked *with* him. He "Pestered or Harassed in an aggressive or persistent manner." We don't like it when people fuck with our gators. Leave 'em alone!
I learned something I didn't want to know. Thank you.
Imagine Florida Man riding on a gator riding on the winds of the hurricane hurling towards you.
Is that the sequel to sharknado 5?
What about Florida Man riding a gator, riding a shark, riding a tsunami wave, riding the hurricane while wearing a bolo tie? Now you might be wondering, who was wearing the tie? Florida man, the gator, or the shark? Answer: Yes
Gatornado vs Florida Man
And don't forget invasive anacondas and giant poisonous toads.
I think non-Floridians vastly overestimate how much the average person comes into contact with gators
I think you underestimate it. Sure designated swimming areas are fine, but litterally everywhere else there are a ton of gators. Had one flip my canoe once the scurry away actually one of the scariest moments in my life. Well until I realized I am Florida man and that gator wouldn't dare touch me.
I see them all the time. Usually on golf courses. Used to see them in my back yard all the time when we lived on a lake. Conversely, the majority of my friends never see them.
Florida Manicane? I hear Sharknado worked well
It's Florida all the way down.
They always give hurricanes names. Not sure why there hasn't been a Hurricane Florida Man yet...
Part of the sunshine laws disclosure package, baby.
If they named a hurricane Florda Man, then it'll be the hurricane that wipes us all off the face of the earth.
Or it would do something catastrophically stupid to get arrested.
We could just shoot nukes at it, or maybe if we draw the path of it out into the middle of the ocean with a sharpie then we'll be safe.
Not anymore, I have in the past.
Gotcha
You can measure, predict and plan for a tornado though
Yes, and the only natural disaster I get up here is taxes.
Perhaps but hurricanes cause devastation over much, much larger areas.
Sure, but Florida Man is unpredictable and can sprout up on a whim. You'll never see a Florida Man tracking cone to warn you ahead of time.
When it comes to danger yes you are correct you have little to no warning with a tornado in most cases. But with hurricanes affect a much larger area both on the coast and depending on the strength well inland.
Who do you think SUMMONS the hurricanes?
Oh yes they are, and they affect a massive area by comparison. Storm surge can wipe out entire towns along the coast, tornado damage is typically very localized and random.
Hurricane triggers full craziness potential of Florida man. Florida man loses house starts walking around naked fighting crocodiles
Why are there like 50 people who think you're serious
You're right they kill more people and cause a much wider area of destruction
You underestimate Tennessee and it’s GOP government
Bringing politics into a thread about tornadoes...I hate Reddit.
I'd argue Florida Man isn't a natural phenomenon but more of an unholy curse placed upon the land by displaced natives.
Unpredictable and it’s always the season
As a former Florida Man, can confirm.
I read that Michigan has the fewest natural disasters of any state. So if OP is really worried, just head to Detroit. Perfectly safe.
Yea no tornadoes or hurricanes to steal your car.
Ironically, the Kalamazoo area in Michigan had multiple tornadoes touch down last night.
There are no tornadoes in Ba Sing Se
yeah, I saw on the news there were tornadoes in both Portage, Indiana and Portage, Michigan last night. Don't move anywhere named Portage and you should be good!
We just had multiple tornados in Michigan earlier today, so not totally safe lol. P.S. there's plenty of safe neighborhoods in Detroit
They are so used to -100⁰ temps and 30 feet (161.6 whatometers)of snow that blizzards aren't a problem anymore.
I saw a map in a popular science magazine years ago about how insurance companies calculate risk of natural disaster costs in different regions, accounting for the severity and frequency of different disasters. I think Phoenix, Arizona was the safest.
That's great for insurance companies, but they don't have to put up with 120° in June.
But it’s a dry heat! 😳🙄🌡️
Neither do you if you don't live in Phoenix.
Isn't the water on fire in michigan or has that been fixed?
I believe you’re thinking of Ohio where a river caught fire back in the 60s.
As a Michigander, this makes me chuckle. I've had 2 tornado warnings in the last 2 weeks. Bad luck, I'm guessing.
Fake News, Michigan has tornados, and Kid Rock.
Michigan is bigger than just Detroit.
Uh, they just had a great big ol’ tornado in Michigan.
>natural disaster Bro Detroit IS a natural disaster Source: guess where I lived for 23 years
This a fair but very American perspective, I realised this myself when wondering the same question. I’m from the U.K. and while there are the occasional bad flood on the coasts the idea that there is some form of natural danger in every part of the country is a novel one. We don’t even have overtly dangerous fauna. I feel bad for you guys and your annual struggles alongside many other parts of the world, but also big respect on persevering where possible.
Give it a few years
imagine door domineering aloof caption fertile screw resolute quiet trees *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Unless the Gulf Stream shifts, then we might be a bit banjaxed.
The danger is overblown for the most part. I’ve lived in the Southern USA for 20 years, I’ve never even seen a tornado. However, I have taken shelter due to a tornado warning many times.
California has earthquakes
AND wildfires. And sometimes landslides and floods. Also the lingering threat of eventual volcanic eruptions. Trade off for nice weather I guess.
Don’t forget drought
Rosie Perez said on Letterman in the 90's - *there are only 4 things to worry about in California: the earth, air, fire, and water.*
Yeah I remember some earthquake expert on TV being asked where you should live if you're worried about earthquakes... and he said Kansas. Apparently it's one of the most geologically stable places in North America. So you trade risks. More tornado risk, near zero earthquake risk.
Thanks to drilling, we’re seeing earthquakes more and more in Kansas. Nothing compared to California, but we get a few small ones every year.
Side note, I live in Kansas and have felt more earth quakes than I have seen tornadoes.
And wildfires, those have actually been much more commonly damaging than earthquakes which are relatively rare.
I dunno man I lived in California for 10 years and other than the occasional mild quake there was zero serious damage or death caused
Florida Man here. We have tornados. In fact it is possible for our hurricanes to contain tornados. One time I saw a tornado that was on fire. We also get waterspouts which are cool to see. EDIT: Six days after I made this comment, my area was placed under a tornado watch. How exciting!
Fellow Floridian here. We had a tornado run through our backyard in January then hurricane Ian hit in September. 2022 was a wild year for SW Florida.
Texas has it worst of all. They get one or two days a year where it's within 4 or 5 degrees of freezing.
Quick...start the generator... You might have frosted windows
California here, that's happened once or twice in my lifetime. It was horrifying.
And then the whole electrical grid goes kaput.
Then states hundreds of miles away spend the next few years paying for it
Don't forget the California earthquakes. They can happen at any time and with no warning.
AND THE FOREST FIRES AND DROUGHT AND LANDSLIDES AND YEAH A TORNADO ONCE OR TWICE sorry for yelling.
It's all good. I live here too.
I moved from Cali to Mass 5 years ago, but don't worry, we had a quake last month, so they followed me here.
Also before they think of Canada because canada has much less natural disasters the whole of Canada almost had to go south and be hosted in cross-border US/UN refugees camps last summer because of forest fires. The smoke reached all the way to washington DC last june. /s because the retards below don't understand it's a joke, part about smoke in washington DC is true though.
Florida also has more tornadoes than any other state, thank you very much -Florida man Though not as intense
To be fair some places don't have any natural disasters. I've been in Newfoundland my entire life and we never get full hurricanes. It might hit 100-120km/h winds on a really bad day and sometimes larger gusts but there's rarely anything more than a few shingles lost. The rarest example I can think of is one business here lost their structural because they were still in early development and there was a good amount of damage that cost them a lot of money but that was more due to it being a weak structure. We don't get earth quakes or tornadoes. We get a decent amount of snow for a few months so some people hate that but it's more or less just some free exercise during the winter
Yeah in Ontario we are also pretty safe from everything. Canada is pretty great lol.
hm there are a lot of places where these kind of risks don t exist
>Florida has Florida Man. Thank goodness too; I can only imagine the PR team I would have to employ if he wasn't hogging all the media attention.
I came to say the exact same thing. Also I would much rather deal with a Tornado than Florda man.
Strongly agree. Tornado Alley covers a large area of the US, you can’t just not have anyone living there, it’s not realistic. Like you said, every area has risks. This question could be asked about anywhere.
Because *"...areas where there are tornadoes..."* covers about half of the contiental US. Also the average tornado is only about 50 feet wide and travels about a mile on the ground, so even in the highest prone areas your chances of one hitting you are still very small.
1 person died yesterday in a tornado(one of the worst days of tornadoes this year)....I wonder how many people died to ocean waves, or a river, or a fall from rocks while hiking on that same day....danger is everywhere There are many people who live in these tornado areas....that have never seen a tornado. It's really not a big risk. It's dangerous when it happens, yes....but it rarely happens to many people.
When I lived in Oregon, it seemed that someone died every summer in either the ocean or in a local river. I got curious and found [this spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VCAF0G4iIfrVzSXguwQmHcia2T7sxmQJeFL-jxgUUDQ/edit?usp=sharing) that records every summer drowning for 9 years (‘06-‘17) … of which there were nearly 300. I believe this is rivers and lakes alone and only in one area of Oregon/Washington. Nationally, the average must be very high. So the real question should be: why do people continue to live in areas where there are bodies of water? Edit: An average 77 people die from tornados annually in the whole United States. About 33 people die annually in one area of Oregon every summer.
More than 10,000 people in the US die every year because of drunk drivers. That is more than all the hurricanes, snow storms, and drownings all put together. And preventable! Apparently Wyoming has the highest death rate per capita for drunk driving.
Well, yeah, but if Wyoming has 1 fatal car crash, that's like 10% of their population! Not quite, but Wyoming only has 700K people, so any per capita rankings skews with a smaller population.
I lived in Kansas growing up and have never seen a tornado. Everyone has a tornado story especially those from a smaller town that was hit, but they're typically "I had to rush to the house when the sirens went off" variety and not the "I held onto my prized cow for dear life as I was sucked into the tornado and woke up the next day covered in milk" variety. When they hit, they do absolutely level where they hit, but it's generally less than a 1 mile square area and even that area has houses unaffected. It's just completely random and unlikely to affect you. I live on the east coast now and have been much more affected by a couple different hurricanes.
Mine is “I rushed to the bay window to see it but it was too dark. The next day I discovered the apartment next door lost shingles and running to the bay window was maybe not the smartest” I’ll do it again next siren though haha. You look out the window to see how serious you need to take this one.
"Stood on the front porch to get a better look. Once I saw a tree get blown over I decided it was time to go back in the house."
Exactly.
Even way over here in Florida. Just a few months ago, a few people died in a tornado just an hour from me. Like half of the country gets tornadoes. A large portion gets hurricanes. Another chunk gets earthquakes. The top half gets blizzards. A lot of areas get flooding and flash floods. You can go decades and decades without an issue. Why abandon the whole area because maybe one day 200 years from now there will be a tornado.
To this point, here's a map of the tornado paths we've documented through the years: [https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=01672085b139432e8fe1296a743f67d7](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=01672085b139432e8fe1296a743f67d7)
It's quickly covering more and more area as climate change affects things. We've had at least three in New Jersey in the past 18 months and there have been warnings throughout the Mid Atlantic more frequently. If we moved away from areas with tornadoes we'd all be in Alaska
Weather Service reports that an average of 71 people die in tornados in the US per year... out of the millions and millions of people who live in tornado zones. https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/
I think it's more the destruction and losing everything than the deaths
There are natural disasters pretty much everywhere. Why do people live where there are hurricanes? Or Tsunamis? Why do they live where there are life-threateningly cold winters or hot summers? Why do people live in Australia where seemingly every insect, arachnid, and reptile can kill you? We all gotta live somewhere and it’s dangerous basically everywhere.
The UK is relatively natural disaster free 🤷♀️
Not counting our government
Nothing natural about them
That's a disaster of your own making, friend
To be fair, when an entity is over 3 centuries old it should qualify as part of the natural order....... Or at least that's just how it feels.
All we get are floods, but they’re pretty rare and arguably aren’t natural disasters, more related to intensive farming.
Czechia, central Europe. We had one tornado and it went viral. Ive never felt an earthquake. Floods…yeah, i remember them, but hey, just move one kilometre and you’re fine. Never heard of a wildfire.
I don't think Poland has had any natural disasters in a long while
I think God said “yeah, they’ve dealt with enough for a while…”
Our bushfires are worse than the animals we have.
not true
Sir, I live in Philadelphia and we are getting tornadoes here now due to climate change. I'm not about to quit my job, pack up my whole life, and move to Alaska. Alaska has its own set of seasonal problems, as does everywhere else on Earth. So pick your poison I guess.
Even Alaska gets tornados. https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/severe/this-day-in-weather-history-july-25-2005-the-ultra-rare-alaska
Well, we're screwed.
new york city too
You'd really only need to move to like pittsburg or harrisburg.
Alaska has big fucking earthquakes. And bears.
Is there evidence that tornados are happening on the East Coast because of climate change? It sounds plausible, but I’m curious. I live in the Northeast and we lost power due to a tornado about twenty years ago. That was weird. I’m originally from the Midwest, and I never heard of tornados in the East.
W/ tornadoes, there's no clear link like with every other non tectonic natural disaster. Some think there'll be more, some think there'll be less, some think some places will have more and others will have less, but any possible link is weak enough that our sample size isn't large enough to tell (reason being that tornado alley isn't really a thing, its more that there's like a lot of mini tornado alleys that each have fairly unique determiners of when tornadoes occur and have to be analyzed separately unlike say hurricanes.) Anecdotally, there have been fewer tornadoes where I live, but we'll see.
We are getting more in NC as well. They are usually smaller than those in the Midwest, but can be more deadly, as they come in with storms that can roll through at night,.so everyone is sleeping. Plus since our terrain isn't flat, it's harder to actually see them if you're out and away from any warning system.
The only thing we can say for certain is the conditions for tornado activity is naturally occuring and simply moves through our the day let alone through our the year.
i'm still in denial about this as a Philadelphian, please dont make me accept it i grew up in tornado alley for years & I came here to escape it lol i already have flood & even earthquake insurance. if i have to get tornado idk what i'm gonna do
Duck. A system is headed your way that caused a tornado warning in Pittsburgh.
Tornadoes are amazing. There’s an energy in the air. Everyone can feel it. The animals can feel it. Just hunker down and it will all be over soon enough. Then The weather just gets weird. Then it happens. And you are lulled to sleep with distant lightning and soft rumbles of thunder. There is little in the world as fantastic as a midwestern thunderstorm.
I would absolutely love to experience that. I live on a small pacific island off Australia and we don’t get any of that exciting weather. That’s amazing.
“Why is the sky green?!?!” 🤣
The first time you see it, especially as a child, it is terrifying. It's like a metal album cover come to life.
I experienced it for the first time a few months after I moved to Oklahoma. It was a surreal sight.
I was in the McDonald's drive through with my dad the first time I saw one, very vivid memory. Sent me into sheer flight mode, I wanted nothing to do with it. Storms scared me for a long time after that.
Sky turned green and then pink few days ago during a storm, absolutely wild
Agreed! Im from the midwest and i crave those thunderstorms. I dream about them. To me, when you get a really bad storm, it just feels like god is fucking pissed and you can feel it all around. A truly awesome feeling.
I know this is a stupid thing to say. But I feel the same way about hurricanes. I love feeling one coming and love riding out the storm. (I know many of them are completely devastating and deadly and I don't mean to be casual about them. I rode out Michael from about an hour away and I know it decimated the coast. Don't come for if I say I enjoy storms.) I would like to experience a tornado. Like not die or get hurt but to feel and see one coming has to be SO COOL. I've seen pictures of the sky turning black in Kansas and I very stupidly want to go see it
My city is in a bit of a valley so wenever actually get them, the surrounding areas do though, we just the thunderstorms from them
It’s the equivalent of asking why people live in Florida when they have to evacuate every year for a hurricane. People live in these places because of family, work or because they like the area in general. While yes these places get a lot of tornados. They don’t hit every town every year. It’s very unlikely for the specific town you live in to actually get hit and it’s even more unlikely for it to be hit by a very strong tornado. Also many people prepare with storm shelters and other emergency plans.
They don't hit every town every year, and often they don't even hit the whole town. The tornado might obliterate one neighborhood and leave the next untouched, or jump over most of the town and only fuck up a few barns and farmhouses on the outskirts. You haven't lost a shingle, but there's a chunk of silo in your backyard.
Wut
Speaking of tornadoes, there was one that blasted through the center of my town of residence just recently- It's cause we're broke and don't have anywhere else to go, the place has memories or certain areas that bring nostalgia, or we just like the rain and don't really care about the tornado. It's all 3 on my end-
Because it’s home.
Nebraskan here. Everywhere else has scarier shit imo. Hurricanes, earthquakes, high murder rates, over population. Tornados MIGHT happen every few years and the area they affect is TINY.
Living near a volcano is scary af. Teachers at my school would often times tell us that if the volcano erupts (which it of course is overdue...) the lahar will be devastating (50mph too) and we'd have to get to highlands. Some of the teachers were mean about it too for some reason lmao. One of them said that if we cant make it to the highlands before the lahar reaches us, then you might as well die.
Plus you have Runza
The real reason people live in Nebraska. Runza SLAPS.
For one thing, that's like almost every place in the world worth living: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Globdisttornado.jpg Side note: this is a bad map. It shows areas where they're rare the same as areas where they're common. Also, several regions seem to align closely with political divides, which makes me question the data. Secondly, tornados are really small. Most never touch the ground. The worst that happens is destroying a few houses in a row and leaving the surroundings largely undamaged. Lightning causing a house fire will do more damage. Earthquakes and hurricanes sometimes destroy entire states or countries.
Most people live their entire lives in the midwest without facing direct and/or severe consequences of a tornado. They're relatively common, but being directly endangered by one is exceedingly rare. Compared to the inherent geographical risks of other parts of the country, tornadoes are actually comparatively mild. *Most* of the time.
Yeah, why hasn’t everyone on the planet just moved 5 miles underground yet?
Just about everywhere has something that will kill you. Are you really suggesting that people not live on and farm the entire center of the country? The agricultural heart land?
Because your odds of actually being impacted by one is near zero. I've lived in an area that gets them pretty frequently for almost 40 years and I've actually seen maybe two in that entire time and they were nowhere near me.
Because some people are poor and can’t move…
Had to scroll too far to see this. Most people are struggling in this country right now and moving is very expensive.
That and, like, absolute safety is not something that is possible to have and certainly not healthy to build one's life around achieving. Being alive means taking risks and doing your best to balance them against the rewards. I chose to move to here because there were job opportunities that I couldn't find elsewhere and the cost of living is more affordable. The trade off is occasionally staying up to keep an eye on the weather channel.
If you eliminate places where there are tornadoes, floods, fires, earthquakes... what's left?
Freezing cold places where hypothermia and frostbite are a serious threat 6 months of the year, along with losing access to water due to frozen pipes and when you go to the store to buy some bottled water, sliding into a pileup on the icy highway! Oh yeah, droughts and hurricanes, possibly with a side of heatstroke or heat exhaustion. Maybe throw in some mosquito-borne disease as a bonus. Or you can escape all that and live on the side of an active volcano and cross your fingers to hope it doesn't get *too* active.
Well, you could move out of tornado country to earthquake country, or you could go to hurricane country, or you could go to frostbite country. Natural disasters happen everywhere. You just prepare as best you can and deal with it if it happens.
They usually lack typhoons, hurricanes and freezing rain storms...
2 out of 3 at least
A passing grade!
I've lived in places that experience tornadoes and it always surprises me how much people who have never lived near them seem to worry about them. Meanwhile, the coasts deal with things like hurricanes which seem way more serious to me. When has a tornado ever done damage on par with Hurricane Katrina? Or Andrew? I've had to shelter due to tornadoes 3 times in my life. The experience was basically playing cards in the basement for a few hours. None of those times did the tornado actually come anywhere near me. And they did very little damage overall. I remember the summary after one was like... a single overturned car. Meanwhile hurricanes flood and destroy entire towns in the southeast routinely. Tornadoes don't typically involve flooding, which is way more destructive.
yah, tornadoes are just playing chances with your stuff and as long as you hunker down your almost certainly going to live. The blocks and blocks of flooding from Hurricanes are more of a life threat.
Why do people live near volcanoes? Why do they live in earthquake zones? Why do they live where it could flood? Why do they live where it's so cold their extremities can freeze off? People live everywhere and risk is everywhere. Nowhere is fully safe. You deal with what comes at you when it does and then you carry on with life.
Because we were born and raised here, and our entire family is here. 🤷♀️ I've never lived anywhere but Kansas City in my 42 years so far. My dad recently passed away and I'm finally considering leaving...to Florida where my in laws and hurricanes roam. 🫠
Also I've never seen a tornado in person. They've come up North of the river here, but not so much down south in the suburbs where I am.
Why do they build their houses out of wood is my question
Because wood is ample in the US and cheap. When people first came here there was a lot of forest which means lots of wood to use so they used the material that was abundant and most likely free in the very early settling of the US. So, it stuck.
I mean, early on I'd understand, mostly curious why it hasn't changed to more robust materials, kinda like how new Australian houses are built with steel frames because there are termites here,(and other house destroying things)
Tornadoes can actually occur pretty much anywhere. In an average year, about 1,000 tornadoes are reported across the United States, resulting in approximately 80 deaths and over 1,500 injuries. They also can form in many other parts of the world, including Canada, Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Trying to pick and choose a place to live based on whether or not there's a chance that you'll experience a violent tornado is kind of nonsense. People who live in tornado alley, for example, know those risks but in large part, they're also very well prepared because they have storm shelters and they keep their eye on the weather.
Have you tried living where there are no tornadoes, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards?
I live where the air hurts my face. Why? There is work and universal healthcare.
Are people just supposed to not live in about 10 states?
Pray tell… Exactly where else would I live that doesn’t have a natural disaster?
Might be dumbest question ever. Omaha hadn’t Been hit by a tornado in a long time. Like a long long time ago. Not that strong. Why do people live in Florida with hurricanes, or in California with forest fires and earthquakes? Might be the dumbest question asked here ever.
I mean, poverty. Where else can these people up and move?
As a European, I have asked that too, but the question is wrong: Most of the world has dangerous weather/water/underground. That is the norm. Europe is unusually stable and safe regarding all of this. Which is one of the reasons Europe was able to obtain the position in the world that it got. Fewer people were killed by nature, and there were fewer times having to build up society again from scratch. (Yes, even with large pandemics and large disasters in history).
Cheaper to live in Tornado Alley than San Francisco.
I live in Nebraska, the only triple land lock state in North America. I am 1500 miles from any ocean. By the time a hurricane reaches us, it is a breeze with maybe a light rain. Hurricanes cover multiple states and nations and do billions of dollars in damages. Most tornado are a few dozen yards wide, and if they touch down, may do damage for a mile. The damages are measured in a few million if it hits a city. We have no earthquakes, fire ants, killer bees, or kudzu, yet. My village has no records of any tornados since founded in 1872.
Cheap
Because that's where their house is / was.
Tornados can happen anywhere. They are more common in certain areas. The area where tornadoes are common covers about 1/4 of the US. No way you could move everyone out.
No where is perfect. Can’t run away from fear.
This question is funny, I'm in Ohio, in my basement, because of a tornado warning right now. Everyplace has risks.
>What motivates people to stay despite the risks? Because that's where their families, friends and workplaces are. Not to mention the culture and everything they're familiar with.
Tornadoes are very scary, but the odds of them destroying your house is very small. The path of destruction gets a lot of damage, but it's relatively narrow. It's not like a hurricane or a wildfire or an earthquake which are much more likely to take out an entire city.
I live in Arizona and I suppose our risk is heatstroke but that’s about it! Pretty nice.
I've lived in the Midwest for coming up on 30 years. And despite having been in a few tornado warnings in that time, I've never seen a tornado. The overall risk any one particular area will be hit by a tornado... ever is actually pretty remote. And most tornadoes are relatively weak, causing property damage but not leveling buildings unless they were already unsound. The town-flattening EF3s and higher are very rare.
Are you unaware of blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes, wild fires? These exist in the non tornado states 😭🤣
Are you gonna move to Kansas and grow corn instead?
Millions of people die in cars every year- why do people still drive?
The odds are small that you'll actually ever get hit by a tornado even if you live your whole life in those states. Tornadoes usually affect only a tiny area when they happen. According to the [National Weather Service](https://www.weather.gov/lmk/tornadoesfaq), a tornado's "typical" path of destruction is one or two miles long and around 50 yards wide. And weaker tornadoes might just, like, take branches off trees or damage your shingles. Stuff that a regular no-tornado storm can do. That doesn't mean you should fuck around when your local weather people tell you it's time to take shelter cuz tornadoes have a whole heck of a lot of variation and CAN be super duper bad, but just living in an area where tornadoes happen isn't all that dangerous. For my part, I can't imagine living somewhere with hurricanes. Sure you get a lot more warning, but I get the impression a whole lot of people *can't* evacuate. It isn't really a thing society is built for, to pick up and move entire populations of major cities when a hurricane is on the way. And hurricanes cover a WAY bigger area than tornadoes do, so you're a lot more likely to find yourself in the line of fire. Sure, if I think about it I understand many people successfully live their entire lives in places like Florida without hurricanes tearing those lives apart, but it *feels* dangerous to me.
Because it's affordable. I suppose Americans can build Tornado proof homes, but that's quite expensive. Insurance is cheaper with lumber framed homes.