1. By observing and analyzing the Nathan World Map of Hazards, I was able to locate some natural hazards that may affect the area around Philadelphia. One icon shows that an increase in heavy rain is one climate impact, though it is difficult to tell whether it will affect my town or right above it. The map shows that earthquakes are not a hazard to my area, however since it is relatively close to a coast in which peak wind speeds may reach high numbers, tropical cyclones may be a threat, though it is likely that a cyclone would die by the time it reaches Philadelphia. While this information does make sense pertaining to the knowledge I have of the history of weather in my town, the map is not quite effective in determining the hazards of a specific town. On the other hand, it is very helpful in seeing the hazards that a particular country or continent may face. 

2. The disaster I have chosen is a preliminary earthquake report submitted on March 29, 2016 at 7:06 PM, located in Caruthersville, North America, USA. It had a magnitude of 2.1 and ranked a 1 on the Mercalli scale. The report stated that the impact did not have enough potential to cause people to feel any Earth movement. Although this is not extremely close to my hometown of Philadelphia, a small-scale earthquake like this is possible in my hometown. While very unlikely, it can happen, as it did a couple of years ago. Because this disaster was so small and harmless, it did not affect many people, or cause negative effects on their health or well-being.

3. From personal experience, I believe that one of the natural hazards that my town faces is hurricanes. Over the years, there have been several destructive hurricanes that have affected my town. The biggest ones that I can recall from memory are Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy, being the most recent one, caused a lot of environmental destruction in my town, as it knocked down many trees and power lines. Our town had power outages that lasted from a week to 10 days at most.

4. A very important way to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards is pre-event preparedness, which is described in Module 8. This action, and the Post-event Recovery and Reconstruction technique also mentioned, both pertain to the particular event I described before: Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey shores very hard, causing a lot of flooding and destruction. My family owns a house in Long Beach Island, NJ, which was hit heavily by the storm. Luckily, because our house was raised coincidentally a year before the storm, it survived the storm without substantial flooding. However, many houses on my block and throughout the island were destroyed by the flooding from Hurricane Sandy. Both an post-event recovery response and pre-event preparedness response due to this event is that many people are now getting their houses raised. This is a response to what happened during Sandy, and also a preparation in case another storm hits.