However, you really can’t predict where tornadoes will hit, other than anywhere in Tornado Alley (most of the Midwest, the South, and Texas). National Geographic printed a map showing tornado paths over their recorded history in the US. Much of those areas were covered in tornado paths. Tornadoes also hit elsewhere; downtown Salt Lake City got hit just a few years ago.

On earthquakes: there’s a huge area in the Midwest, South and East, centered on New Madrid MO, that was affected by the New Madrid earthquake in the early 19th century. If that fault slips again as an 8.0 or 9.0 quake, St Louis and Memphis are going to be pancaked (from the quake and its effects on the Mississippi River), and many other cities are going to be badly damaged. The Science, History, and Weather Channels have run specials about the risk.

I know several people who have wet ground. My sump usually only runs in the wet spring and occasionally in the fall. It has run almost continuously since last winter. But I am still drier than many.

That means much of New Orleans should be turned into public parks.

And as mentioned before, every state has locales where “geologic reality” is ignored. Every state has natural disasters. Every state, in short, has unfortunate events due to weather. No locale is immune.

It’s a matter of developers who find a cheap plot of land in a flood plain and build beautiful houses there.

“If you build it, they will come.”

The New Madrid fault is in the middle of a trampoline a thousand miles across. Wheee! More bounce for the buck for sure.

Just a quick rundown:

1748 – The Whitest Winter on Record
1888 – One of the Deadliest-ever storms in the prairie states
1898 – Various Severe Weather anomalies
1908 – 34 Tornadoes throughout the Southern states in a 3 day period
1918 – 42.5 inches of snow in Chicago. That record still stands
1928 – More than 1,800 people die in floods due to dikes breaching caused by a Cat. 4 Hurricane
1938 – Hurricane in Long Island, New York, and Rhode Island kills more than 600
1948 – The Columbia River remained above Flood levels for 51 straight days.
1958 – 72 inches of snow fall in a 24 hour period in Montana
1978 – 2 paralyzing storms in the midwest and North East. Pools are reported frozen over in Los Angeles
1988 – Record breaking high temps throughout North America, losses as a result reported at around $39 Billion
1998 – Several severe icing events throughout the North East

So, what does 2008 hold? If history is any indication, watch out.

And here in my home state of West Virginia dozens of towns are parked into either narrow valleys that flood whenever two+ inches of rain falls in a twenty-four hour period, or are situate on the rare flat land that abuts – you guessed it – a river. Following massive floods of the Tug River in 1977 and 1985, the ACE built, at a cost of approx. $400 MILLION, flood walls to protect the tiny burgs of Williamson and Matewan (I used to live in Williamson; it wasn’t worth saving). Part of the enormous cost also went to “raise” houses outside the floodwalls by creating a new ground level that isn’t supposed to be used for anything and lifting and placing the original house on top of said level, often at a cost well in excess of the original value of the home. Of course, all this did was give the homeowner an extra floor, which is often turned into living space filled with expensive fixtures (usually the TV room, with a nice flat-screen for the NASCAR, or a game room, complete with pool table).

Sheesh. I’m all for property rights in principle, but when caveat emptor and moral hazard are removed, well, all bets are off.

Stockton used to flood every year, back around 1950. All that’s needed is a heavier than usual snow pack in the Sierra Nevadas, and it’s “glub glub glub”.

Behold the power of cheese… and massive amounts of beer.

Nevertheless, the title of the article misses the mark: Midwesterners understand these cycles quite well. It’s the federal government that continues to offer flood insurance to those that live in flood plains, allowing problems to repeat themselves.