Comment by cowboysauce | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cowboysauce | Hacker News Reader

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I would 100% live in a tornado prone region over an earthquake prone region. Tornadoes, by their nature are small and very localized. An EF5 tornado could pass within a few hundred feet of your house and you'd come out essentially unscathed. Earthquakes can inflict damage in a massive area. During the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, the fracture happened along several hundred miles of the fault and the resultant tsunami devastated large stretches of coastline.

Since tornadoes are so localized, recovery happens quicker. Additionally, if your area was struck by a tornado, nearby areas likely weren't, which can provide you a place to buy supplies.

I'd rate them from worst to less worse as: * earthquake * hurricane * tornado

The warning a hurricane gives is invaluable. You can evacuate, you can gather up important documents, you can get a refill on any medications you take. An earthquake gives no warning. Even tornadoes give a lot of warning when compared with earthquakes. Not to mention the tsunamis that earthquakes can cause.

Tsunami risk is specific to particular fault zones (subduction), a small fraction of all earthquakes.

And proximity to water.

Effects can be widespread (as with Indian Ocean), though that was a ~50 year event. Awareness, warning, elevation, and robust construction mitigate risk.

Earthquakes are generally infrequent (Japan and Chile are notable exceptions). Up to mag 7 or so, most structures can be designed survivable, though with poor construction, even mag 5 (100 times weaker) can cause widespread death & destruction (unreinforced masonry, stone, brick, etc.).

Interesting perspective. As a native Californian I couldn't disagree more. In 33 years of living in California, the number of times I've actually spent any significant time thinking about earthquakes is very close to 0. I lived in Southern California at the time of the 1994 Northridge earthquake and it wasn't even impactful enough for me to remember it.

The maximum downside of an earthquake is tremendous, but the odds of a catastrophic earthquake occurring in your lifetime are also tremendously low. Earthquakes also have the distinct advantage of not being impacted by climate change. (AFAIK?)

I'm not sure how to think about tornadoes, not living in a particularly tornado-prone area. But with respect to hurricanes, there are certainly areas of the country where you will periodically have significant hurricane-related drama. I'm not sure how that translates into death/destruction in the "equivalent" earthquake zone, but it's certainly much more of a given over time.

Having lived in Oklahoma city for a large part of my life, you just become weather aware when the risk of large tornado's are the greatest. The prediction of conditions favorable for tornado's is pretty accurate these days, and make it easy to know when to pay attention to the weather.

If you have a storm shelter the risk of death is extremely low. Even without a storm shelter all but the largest tornado's are survivable, even if your house takes a direct hit, by following the recommended precautions the weatherman will tell you about every time there is one.

Each tornado is much less dangerous than an earthquake, but there vastly more tornadoes than (serious) earthquakes.

Having lived in the Bay Area since 1995, I've lost more respect for quakes than is probably healthy.

Wikipedia [1] tells me that most tornadoes are less than 250 feet across, and even the biggest tornadoes are only 2 miles wide.

So basically the area of effect they have is similar in size and shape to a roadway.

Yes, you don't want a tornado landing on you. But two blocks over it'll be nothing more than a windy day.

Perhaps you should lose some more respect for tornadoes as well :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado

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