I am from and live in Wayne, New Jersey just outside of New York City. In my opinion the world map is way too large of a scale to accurately determine exactly what natural disasters occurs and the magnitude of them. From what I could interpret, my town experiences the following: low risk of earthquakes (zone 0), high risk for effects of tropical cyclones (zone 4 and 5), relatively low frequency of hailstorms (zone 3), winter storms (zone 1), low frequency of tornados (zone 2), and a low risk of wildfires (zone 0/1). During El Nino, my city is located in an area that tends to be warmer, and during El Nina it experiences more storms.

The natural disaster I chose is a volcanic eruption of Popocatepeti Volcano in States of Puebla Mexico. It is not possible for my hometown to experience this type of disaster because there are no volcanos in New Jersey or any of the surrounding states. Authorities have placed a 7 mile exclusion zone surrounding the volcano. My town is 50 square miles, and there are around 50,000 residents. There is not much data relating to the severity of the current eruption, but a 2014 eruption caused the cities 40,000 residents to evacuate. A similar population would have to evacuate if this were to happen near my town. The difference is my town is near the coast and we are not anywhere near a large mountain rage. Therefore, from a vulnerability perspective, I would think that everyone is at a low risk. The only human factor that may effect this (in theory if we were located near a mountain range), is that there are both poor and rich sections of my town, and I would fear that if evacuation were needed the rich would have a much easier time doing so. I do mostly come from a white collar town so I do not think gender would play much of a role, as families would work together to prepare and work to safely guide them through a disaster.

Using the following resource:

http://www.passaiccountynj.org/DocumentCenter/View/4943

My assessment of Wayne NJ is that it is very vulnerable to storms, tropical storms and flooding. According to the February 2015 Mitigation plan update, Wayne has suffered from 7 severe storms/tropical storms/hurricanes in the last 3 years. From those 7 natural hazards, there have been 278 assisted and non assisted evacuations of homes and residents. Because much of Wayne lies near the Passaic river and other bodies of water. Much of it lies in a flood zone so it makes sense that during these large storms, there would need to be evacuations. In three of the 7 events, roads were closed and damaged, houses were damaged, and residents were forced to move their cars to higher ground. Aside from this, the document states that we are also a high risk for winter storms.

There are many actions that can be done to try and reduce the vulnerability of our residents to these natural hazards. The first thing that can be done is an emergency response plan, which according to the same document, Wayne township has in place and works towards reviewing every year. Also, the installation of dams and floodgates can be built in surrounding towns and bodies of water that will aid in reducing the flooding. The municipalities and township would be the best people to put these objectives into place. Residents should also be prepared to evacuation with “survival kits” and other safety resources in case of a disaster. I can personally stay alert and be aware of all possible public access exits out of my town in case of an emergency evacuation. Being a Boy Scout, I already have a basic emergency kit prepared.