I live in Waynesboro, PA and I found this map to be quite interesting and correct for the most part. Where I live we are located in Zone 2 for hailstorms which is reasonable, zone 2 for tornadoes, and zone 1 for wildfires. These are all definitely threats to my town and we have seen all of these things occur here. There have been multiple instances of small tornadoes as well as hailstorms and a few wildfires. The Nathan map is very well suited for this task and shows very clearly where certain weather patterns are found and for Pennsylvania it was pretty accurate.

On March 31, 2016 there was a flash flood in Galicia, Spain.Nobody was injured but there was a high damage level. My hometown can experience this type of disaster and we have flash flood watches and warnings quite often. There are many creeks around Waynesboro which cause it to be vulnerable when there is a lot of rain put down in a short amount of time. The creeks grow quite large and become very fast and powerful. These flash floods can wash your car off the road, take down sheds, and flood houses and their basements. The flash flood is occurring region-wide in Galicia which is about the same as would happen around my town. They would have about the same impact depending on the amount of rain fall. There are different levels of vulnerability in my town during the event of a flash flood. People who live near creeks and bodies of water are more vulnerable than people who live in the mountains or higher elevations. To reduce my towns vulnerability I would suggest creating walls around creeks when they are near houses. Most places do have some sort of barrier so that the creek is low enough that there shouldn’t be a problem but that’s not always the case.

There are many natural hazards that occur in Waynesboro, however most are not severe. I have been through two very surprising earthquakes in the 21 years that I have been alive and both of them have been pretty recently. According to the Earthquake Index at usa.com, Waynesboro is a 0.04, which means its possible but not likely. There have also been multiple tornadoes around my area while I’ve been alive. Waynesboro is 115.34 on the Tornado Index. Waynesboro also is effected by strong winds, floods, blizzards, hail, wildfires, and droughts (Waynesboro). All of these hazards can create a lot of damage but since we are used to most of these hazards we have learned how to protect ourselves.

“Waynesboro, PA Natural Disasters and Weather Extremes.” – USA.com™. N.p., 2016. Web. 31 Mar. 2016. <http://www.usa.com/waynesboro-pa-natural-disasters-extremes.htm>

There are many ways we could reduce our vulnerability to these natural hazards and for the most part a lot of these ideas are already implemented. We have Smoky the Bear who shows us the level of risk we are for wildfires which in turn helps us protect ourselves by being more careful with fires or not have fires at all. DCNR and firefighters are the best at helping protect from these vulnerabilities and with their help of identifying situations where wildfires are prevalent we can stop ourselves from causing an accident. We can’t really do anything to reduce damage from hail except find a place to keep our cars and important things covered. One thing we are really not prepared for is a very bad tornado. Western states who get tornadoes all the time have cellars and shelters underground for protection unlike most houses around here that don’t even have basements; let alone a tornado shelter. To reduce our vulnerability against tornadoes we need to start building more houses with basements, or build a big shelter underground that people can go to if they don’t have anywhere to go and there is enough time to react to a tornado watch.