1. Looking at the Nathan World Map of Natural Disasters, my hometown, Syracuse or more specifically, the upstate of New York, seems to be in Zone 1 for hailstorms, zone 2 for winter storms, zone 1 for tornados, zone 0 for wildfires. Evidently, my hometown is at a low risk for all potential natural hazards with exception to winter storms. These findings are not surprising, seeing as how Syracuse is the number 1 snowiest city in New York State. Syracuse is is not located near any tectonic plate boundaries, therefore its potential risk for earthquakes is little to none, as we can see because on the map, Syracuse lie’s in zone 0 under the potential earthquakes category. Although I felt that this map was somewhat difficult to read, I believe its sufficient for discovering natural hazards in different parts of the world.
2. On March 28th 2016, Buffalo Recycling Enterprises located in Buffalo, New York, experienced a massive fire. There’s no damage estimate for the original property, but crews say there was some $15,000 in damage to a neighboring property. One firefighter was hurt but other than that there were no casualties. This specific disaster caught my interest because Buffalo New York is about an hour and half from my hometown, Syracuse. Therefore, yes with out a doubt this kind of disaster could happen at home. Syracuse has a huge landfill where you are able to bring old junk and dump it into a landfill and then later on it’s burned. We also have a number of recycling centers. Recycle metals, recyclables and rubbish are the materials that caught fire at the recycling enterprise in Buffalo, therefore, Syracuse having these centers, containing these same type of materials, makes it so that Syracuse is susceptible to the same disaster Buffalo under went. As far as vulnerability, the city of Syracuse would be on the same scale as the city of Buffalo. Firefighters said the property was a quarter-mile long, therefore, residents who live relatively closer to the recycling enterprise would be slightly more vulnerable to the fire disaster in both cities. In order to decrease vulnerability in Syracuse, I think houses and buildings shouldn’t be built within a certain radius of such enterprises, just incase a fire did happen to break out, there wouldn’t be any near by neighboring property.
3. Living in Syracuse, undergoing server snow storms every winter is a norm. The most recent gigantic snow storm was that in December of 2010. As the fourth-highest total record for a four-day period, the National Weather Service reported that 43.2 in of snow had fallen. An astonishing finding, was that Buffalo, the city referenced in number 2 above, was number 1 on TheRichest list for ‘The Top 10 Biggest Snowstorms Ever Recorded”, with the snowfall averaging out at 199.4 inches that storm. So as assumed above, natural disasters that happen in Buffalo, most certainly occur in my hometown as well.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/syracuse-area_snowstorm_total.html
4. The number one action to be taken to reduce vulnerability could be pre-event preparedness. Being pre-event prepared means paying attention to the upcoming weather and if a potential snow storm is in the forecast, make sure you take the necessary steps in order to make the disaster the least harmful. The best thing to do no matter what the hazard is, is to be aware and knowledgable of any potential events. The best people to inform others of weather hazards, is meteorologists, and if it’s a biological hazard, such as an illness or disease, then the best people to get information from would be healthcare officials. Personally, in order for me to reduce vulnerability in my area, I can make sure I’m paying attention to ongoing events and if I become aware of any potential hazards, to make sure I spread the word.
Hey Alexus, my name is Lizzy, and I enjoyed reading your blog post. From reading through a couple blog posts, I found that most people agree that the map make it difficult to determine specific hazards for their particular town, but that the hazards they can find from it seem to hold true to the hazards they may have personally experienced there. I agree with your answer in number 4, that pre-event preparedness is so important. This includes proper knowledge of what is to come, and a stress on the importance of the steps that people need to take to avoid destruction from hazards. Here is a link to my blog post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/29/natural-hazards-4/.
Hi Alexus, my name is Jake Segall. Here is a link to my post!
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/29/module-8-jake-segall/
I could not agree with you anymore on your answer for number 4. As a meteorologist, the biggest concern we have in our community is how to properly communicate and warn people well enough ahead of time so that it makes a difference. One of the problems with this, however, is that people are often not willing to respond to warnings and that creates issues down the line. For example, many people did not heed the warnings of Hurricane Katrina because they had become accustomed to major storms turning and missing the Gulf region of Louisiana. Despite there being two other occurrences of a major hurricane impacting this region, one as recent as the late 60’s, people still decided to stay and wait it out. This is a major problem that may have no solution to it.