Using the Nathan world map of natural disasters I can see that my hometown, Bucks County, PA experiences zone 3 and 4 tropical cyclones with zone 3 hailstorms. The map shows that my area is in zone 1 or 2 for extratropical (or winter) storms. It seems as though my area is in zone 2 or 3 for tornados and zone 1 for wildfires. For anomalies during El Niño, my area experiences fewer storms and during La Niña, there are more storms. I do not believe that the Nathan map document is suitable for this task because it is almost impossible to correctly locate an area and report on it. The Nathan map is better suited fort finding trends for general areas instead of specific places.

According to The Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress Signaling and Infocommunications’ (RSOE) Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS) there was a volcano eruption at 6:37 AM on March 31st 2016 in the States of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos in Mexico. My hometown cannot experience the same type of disaster because there are no volcanos even in the state of Pennsylvania. The database does not specially say the scale of the disaster but considering that it did effect three different major states, this disaster is much larger than my hometown. If this volcano eruption were to happen in my hometown it would be catastrophic and take out my entire town. I believe the severity of the disaster on the human population of my hometown would be disastrous. The people in my town would not have that different of levels of vulnerability because my area is relativity flat and so everywhere would be affected relatively the same. People who are closer to the base of the volcano would be affected sooner than others. My area is very farm based and having a volcanic eruption would wipe out all of the farming and irrigation that is in place.

According to FEMA’s disaster declarations for Pennsylvania, the most common natural disasters are severe storms and flooding. These severe storms cause major problems for homes and business along the Delaware River and other bodies of water that are in Pennsylvania. The storms can cause power outages and floods as well major issues for bridges and automobiles. Yardley, the town over from mine, has experienced many devastating floods that have cause many business and homeowners along the Delaware River to either move away or rebuild their buildings to accommodate flooding so the structures would be able to withstand the water damage. https://www.fema.gov/disasters/grid/state-tribal-government/44 

One major action that can be done to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards in my town is building resilience in non-disaster times. As I stated earlier, this has been done by some buildings around rivers that often flood but structures that are normally right outside of the danger zone do not make an effort to fortify their areas. I believe this is imperative and needs to be done because when disasters happen, they need to be prepared for the worst. I think that the best people to preform these actions would be the builders for the building and homes that are in high flood and storm areas. They will be able to make and stick to guidelines when building the structures. I can help by preparing my home for floods and storms. One way that I can do this is to make sure my family is prepared with things like a generator.