Hacker News Reader

Comment by take_a_breath | Hacker News Reader

Come to the US Midwest, we don’t have earthquakes or hurricanes.

Except for this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811–1812_New_Madrid_earthquak...

"The 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes were a series of intense intraplate earthquakes beginning with an initial earthquake of moment magnitude 7.2–8.2 on December 16, 1811, followed by a moment magnitude 7.4 aftershock on the same day. Two additional earthquakes of similar magnitude followed in January and February 1812. They remain the most powerful earthquakes to hit the contiguous United States east of the Rocky Mountains in recorded history."

Blizzards and tornadoes, yes, but no hurricanes. There is always the New Madrid fault--about 25 or 30 years ago some seismologist was scaring people about how it was ready to let go again.

Yep, right after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.

I distinctly remember as a third grader in Radcliff, Kentucky doing several science and writing assignments related to earthquakes in the United States because there was all this news and speculation about New Madrid.

It's probably just the natural attentuation towards chaos in every American boy, but there was a distinct flavor of "wouldn't it be cool if ...?" to it all.

Needless to say, it was an extemely disapponting summer that followed.

Colorado here in Denver is nice. No earthquakes or hurricanes. Tornadoes are possible but exceedingly rare in the front range. The last one that touched down was in 1988. We do get snow storms, but they tend to melt quickly. :)

I always wondered, why don't they build houses level with the ground in the midwest to protect against tornadoes? What I'm envisioning is a single floor home that has skylights level with the outside ground, which is either level with the surrounding area or slightly build up to prevent flooding. This would prevent needing to worry about your home getting torn up by tornadoes.

Seems like you're trading one risk for the certainty that you'll eventually flood your house. Flooding basements isn't uncommon, if you move your living area downstairs then you'll be flooding that instead.

Also, most people don't want to live in daylight bunkers to mitigate a risk.

> I always wondered, why don't they build houses level with the ground in the midwest to protect against tornadoes?

In no particular order:

1. Expense

2. Flooding

3. Radon

4. No one aspires to be a basement dweller.

Because tornadoes are extremely rare.

And when they do occur, the area they effect is very small.

This. The reason we hear so much about them is that they're so flashy - they appear rapidly, can cause pretty major destruction where they hit, and disappear rapidly.

You also don't get days of build-up like a hurricane, it's only around 10-15 minutes to go from "a storm that might make tornados (like many are)" to "one is likely to appear at X" to "hopefully you're already sheltered, it's here". Hunkering down has to be done rapidly, which is stressful and memorable, even if nothing happens to you.

People like to have windows, rather than everyone living in a basement. And tornadoes aren't that common anywhere in the US midwest.

New England too. We get nor'easters (big storms from the Atlantic that create a lot of rain, snow, and wind) but these aren't close to disastrous like a hurricane or an earthquake. Even Hurricane Sandy, that rocked New York and New Jersey, ran out of steam before reaching New England.

> Come to the US Midwest, we don’t have earthquakes or hurricanes.

I live by the Great Lakes: we don’t have earthquakes or hurricanes or tornadoes.

Plus I don't have to worry about an aquifer running dry.

Yes, but you do have Ohio.

Significant areas of Midwest can have floods though and they tend to be able to affect much larger areas than in less flat areas of the country.

All that fresh water can certainly cause problems.

Well now apparently you have to worry about derechos.

But tornadoes...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com