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Comment by Diederich | Hacker News Reader

What the heck, I'll go on a little bit more after noting that we loved living in the SF Bay Area when we did.

Our electricity is almost all hydro, and so very green. Our only vehicle is a Tesla which we charge at home.

Our home is relatively close to the Puget sound but we're nearly 100 feet above it, which will make us proof against 21st century sea level rise, hurricanes (currently impossible here) and tsunamis. At the same time, the very large amount of water near us strongly moderates our temperature fluctuations, similar to but stronger than the same effect on the peninsula in the SF Bay Area.

There's no state income taxes. Property tax is slightly higher than in the SF Bay Area. Sales tax is about the same.

Finally, this is my current view: https://www.realms.org/pics/woods-outside.jpg

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What's the earthquake risk - are you close to any faults? That's always been my concern about the west coast.

The Seattle area had a big earthquake about 20 years ago[0], which was most certainly felt in Olympia. But that's the only time I've felt the earth tremble in the 20 years I've lived in the Seattle area. But WA does get them once in a while. [1] Personally, it's low on my list of things I worry about.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Nisqually_earthquake [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Washing...

1 in 3 of a very large earthquake hitting in the next 50 years: https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2010/may/odds-huge-qu...

That could cause a large to very large tsunami.

The place we selected is proof against any Tsunami, and massively over-built to handle large earthquakes.

Is elevation what makes it Tsunami-proof? Or was there another way you made it Tsunami-proof?

You may not deal with tropical cyclones, but please understand that where you live the weather can become quite violent.

https://www.climate.washington.edu/stormking/mainindex.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day_Storm_of_1962

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_windstorm

No offense, but you're digging back to 1962 to find that weather. I live in the Seattle area, and the worst thing about it is the seasonal depression. Granted, I'm originally from the south eastern US, so I'm used to hurricanes, but this place is a cake walk. There are occasional winds of 15 miles an hour or so, but compared to the majority of the rest of the country, it's fairly isolated from inclement weather phenomenon.

Understand and agree with what you're saying! "Easy weather" was one of the big wins in our decision making process to move here.

On the other hand, we're planning on the 70 year time horizon, which is basically reasonable MAX_AGE for our teenage son, so looking many decades back was appropriate for us as well.

Further, as more and more energy ends up captured in the atmosphere, we expect rare atmospheric events to become a lot less rare.

> it's fairly isolated from inclement weather phenomenon.

Indeed, we're loving it, especially given that we generally like cool, wet weather as a baseline.

Thanks for these, I was aware after researching (for years!) places where we'd want our 'forever home'.

Above, I specifically called out something you can't generally build for, which is flooding. Flooding comes either from water running down hill or from below, due to rising bodies of water. Our house is at the top of a very shallow rise/'hill', so we don't have to worry about the former. That we're more than 100 feet above any relevant body of water protects us from the latter.

The other items are generally about high winds, and this house is pretty much proof against that. It was massively over-built.

The only thing it could not withstand is a direct hit from a powerful tornado.

I wasn't aware of https://www.climate.washington.edu/stormking/mainindex.html great resource, thanks again!

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