Christina Liptak – Natural Hazards

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  1. I live in Schuylkill Haven, PA which is the southern part of Pennsylvania. According to the first map, my area looks like it is very susceptible to flooding. I only reminder one time in which our area really flooded it was around 2010. The area got flooded about 7 blocks from where I lived. The second map shows that my area is either zone 2 or zone 3, which is in the low side of hailstorms. The third map shows that my area can get winter storms with wind peaks less than 80km/h. The fourth map shows that my area is in the zone 2 of the tornadoes frequency. The map was hard to read since you could not zoom in to the area in which you want to look at very well.
  2. The area in which I choose to look at was the Pavlof Volcano in the state of Alaska. This eruption happened on March 28, 2016. There is not enough information on the eruption there. I know that my area will never have a volcano eruption like they had in Alaska due to the fact that there are no volcanoes in my area. If this would happen in my town I feel the whole town would be destroyed due to the eruption. Everyone in the town would be dead or moved away from the area to a safe zone. The houses and schools in the area would be burned or covered in lava.
  3. Schuylkill Haven, PA is a very small town. There was only 2 recorded earthquakes with a magnitude of 3.5 or above in my area. Both of these happened before I was born. The first was in 1964 and the last one was in 1984. When I looked at the tornado index, it said we had 51 historical tornado in my area. I looked at the affected county and found 2 that affect my area. The first happen in 1981 and the second in 1992 which was before I was born. I looked at the other weather extremes and found out that we had 606 floods in the area, 664 hail and 2,203 thunderstorms winds. I feel we are very susceptible to thunderstorms winds because that was the highest weather extreme. The link I used for this information is http://www.usa.com/schuylkill-haven-pa-natural-disasters-extremes.htm.
  4. The only action that I could see that we could prevent is the flooding of my area. The way they could prevent this is by building a floodwall around the dam and by the river that runs through Schuylkill Haven. The best people to perform these action are the town council and the mayor. The only thing I can do is make sure I listen to the news when there is an extreme thunderstorm and be prepare to leave the house with some of my belongings and cat. I will have to find a place that would accept pet in shelter. If they give us enough warning about the disaster I could try to help my parents move everything to the higher levels of our house.

One thought on “Christina Liptak – Natural Hazards”

  1. Hi Christina! I am very familiar with the Schuylkill Haven area and I find it very similar geographically, to my hometown Montoursville, Pa. The Susquehanna river borders my hometown and we often experience flooding during heavy rains. I know my area has also experienced mild earthquakes in the past but The Nathan’s World Map of Hazards showed that Pennsylvania did not experience earthquakes. I found the map hard to interpret as well but believed it was informative for a broad spectrum of hazards. We seem to have the same likeliness of hazards in our areas and I am thankful we are at a low risk. The pre-event preparedness is very important and I believe it would be beneficial to develop an effective stragedy to prepare for possible hazards. Great job on your post! You can find mine at: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/29/viii-hazard-vulnerability/
    Sincerely,
    Tawnya

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