Hazards in my Hometown – Kyle Hoke

According to the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards, my hometown of East Stroudsburg in Northeast Pennsylvania is vulnerable to a few different natural hazards. My town is in a moderate risk zone for cyclones, or hurricanes, but like discussed in the module, Hurricane Sandy affected a lot of the northeast. It also appears that my town is in a moderate zone for Tornado frequency. These metrological hazards involve lots of wind, which can be damaging to my town, since there a lot of trees that can fall on houses, cars, or even people. The people that live in the woods would be most at risk, since their homes and possessions are surrounded by trees. The map is tough to read since it shows the whole world. It is difficult to pinpoint how a hazard will affect the exact spot of my hometown

 

On the interactive map of hazards, I chose to look at Biological Hazard in Tuscany, Italy. It was a meningitis outbreak that occurred on March 5th and left 4 people dead. My hometown can definitely experience this same type of disaster. The risk is relatively high, as there is a pharmaceutical company that creates vaccines for diseases in our town. There is no doubt samples of many diseases in those labs that have the potential to cause an outbreak. This hazard was stated as Tuscany-wide, meaning it was throughout the entire state in Italy. Italy is developed just like Pennsylvania, and also includes a lot of countryside. So like it states in the module we can look at how they dealt with this hazard, and relate it to the scale of Northeast Pennsylvania in the case of a biological hazard. I think the outbreak would cause more deaths due to the population being more dense in my hometown than throughout the state of Tuscany. There are definitely people that could be more affected than others. Those who are wealthy enough to afford good healthcare and hospital stays will be more likely to survive an outbreak. There are also those that may not be wealthy, but live far away from people on farms. They may be able to stay secluded and essentially quarantine themselves from others with a disease.

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