Natural Hazards – Landon Brenize

  1. Being from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and looking at the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards, I can identify some of the hazards around the Northeast region. One of the hazards is there is an increase in heavy rain. Having lived in this region my whole life, I can say from personal experience that there is an increase in heavy rain just in the last five years. Another hazard that has increased a little over the last five years and you can see it on the Nathan World Map would be the frequency and intensity of hailstorms. From personal experience, I can say that there always seems to be a couple more hailstorms every year. Overall, the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards is good for getting a sense throughout the world where natural disasters normally happen.
  2. On March 29, 2016 at 3:30 AM, there was a forest/wild fire Ruidoso, New Mexico in the United States. The damage level of the wildfire was small and burned about 175 acres. My hometown could experience a wildfire disaster like this one but it is very unlikely that there are forest fires in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania because it’s not normal very dry like it is in New Mexico. Therefore, it would be harder for a forest fire to natural start and continue to burn 175 acres. The scale of the disaster was described as small, but 175 acres is still a good chuck of land to get burned down. 175 acres would be about the size of our mall and the surrounding area and would worry the people in the area about another one happening again. So if the wildfire burned up our mall and the surrounded area, the people that would be most vulnerable would be the people that worked at the mall and lost their jobs and the people that owned the building and the surrounding buildings. To reduce vulnerability, there would need to be pre-wildfire preparedness and emergency relief to protect people in Lancaster.
  3. One resource I can use to assess the natural hazards my town faces is my own experience for living there for 20 years. I can say that there seems to be more heavy rain and also more hailstorms every year. Another resource I can use is USA.com. According to USA.com, the Lancaster, PA area has an index where it compares natural disasters to the state of Pennsylvania and to the USA. Lancaster has an earthquake index of .55 which is higher than the state average of .17 but lower than the nation average of 1.81. Lancaster also has a tornado index of 168.67 which is higher than both the state average of 109.77 and a national average of 136.45 (USA.com). Lancaster faces more tornado hazards than the national average and more earthquakes than the state average.  http://www.usa.com/lancaster-pa-natural-disasters-extremes.htm#EarthquakeIndex
  4. To reduce vulnerability to natural hazards in Lancaster, there needs to be pre-preparedness and emergency relief. People will be less vulnerable if they know what to do when and natural hazard is coming and what steps need to be taken to keep them safe. If something does happen and they don’t have time to react, it would be a good security knowing that there is emergency relief and you are not alone. The best people to perform these actions so people feel safe would be the mayor and board of directors  to help us out with emergency relief. It is also our job to take the steps to prepare ourselves for natural hazards and to also help people if they feel vulnerable to natural hazards because we would want someone to do the same for us.

One thought on “Natural Hazards – Landon Brenize

  1. Hi Landon, my name’s Lexie and you can find my blog here: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/29/natural-hazards-mod-8/

    I saw that one of the natural hazards you wrote about in your post was about a fire hazard. I also wrote about a fire in my post, a recycling enterprise caught on flames and spread across some acres. While looking through a number of blogs, i’ve noticed that almost everyone agrees that pre-preparedness is key to decrease vulnerability.

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