What is the safest place in the U.S.??

I know it's not here. Maybe Colorado? The movie "The Stand" comes to mind.

Every area has its own quirks. On that note what is the most unsafe area to live?

Chime in people.

BTW this has nothing to do with a Zombie outbreak.

Blitz

I consider the Gulf Coast to be one of the safest areas to be for the following reasons and with the following exceptions:

Good:
1) Great area irt Nuclear Conflict-will receive lttle fallout and few targets within the region.
2) Irt weather-subject to severe weather including a few tornadoes (known areas), like most places, but we can see a hurricane coming from a week away. Occasional flooding can be a problem but pick your hacienda with care.
3) Geologically-very little activity (occasional 1's) that are cushioned/absorbed by the water/earth ratio.
4) Manmade problems-nuclear power plants-pick your hacienda with care. The same is true irt to transportation routes and junctions, just like anywhere else.
5) Plentiful food supply locally, year 'round.

Bad:
1) Coastal erosion and rising sea levels-My present home will be beach front property in 50 years.

Notes:
1) Hurricanes landing in my area lose at least 1 category of strength before they get to my home.

You know somthing the rest of don't or are the zombie's just a local thing in your area?

I like living in Colorado. No flooding here, just winter storms and occasional summer tornadoes. Great weather most of the time.

MuHuHuUuA Ah

Might just be our "home" in the Sierra foothills in CA. In the local once a week newspaper, the biggest crime is usually mailbox vandalizm, and that is always on the same street. No weather extrems, no smog, no shopping centers, no dry cleaners, no housing tracts. Paradise in CA. I would tell you where it is, but then I would have to kill you...

Safest place?

I don't think there is one.

Natural disasters don't care. Storms and tornadoes can pop up anywhere. Long dead fault lines can become active. As I understand it much of Kentucky is waiting for a Big One that will surely come and level the area sometime between now and the end of time. The Sierra Nevada is waiting for their own spectacular regional Big One.

I don't believe in these sorts of things but they aren't entirely impossible so they remain something to throw into the mix. If the "Nemesis" hypothesis, or one of its many variations, a large asteroid of some description aimed at earth, is correct or the claims of a cosmic 'death beam', an X-ray jet from a black hole which will be aimed at us soon, are true it really doesn't matter where you are everyone dies. If your on earth your pretty much screwed. I suppose if your lucky your near the epicenter and die quickly. The advice to "Embrace the horror" (preferably with chips, dip and your drink of choice in hand as you kick back in your lawn chair and watch the show)is about as good as any I guess.

Anywhere there are humans your risking random violence, jealous rage from jilted lovers, imported disease (children are little disease incubators and distributors), terrorism follows population concentrations as do economic collapses and riot.

Of course if you wishing to avoid untimely death on a more personal level, a far bigger risk than a nuke, avoid motor vehicles, exercise regularly and eat less meat. It still won't help if you slip in the tub and brain yourself on a nice bit of chrome but life is inherently dangerous. Nobody gets out of here alive.

You can specify any particular risk and find an area that is relatively immune to that risk but there is, IMHO, too much overlap between risks. In the end I think the best you can do is pick your poison and take your chances.

I would vote for SW Oregon. Nice climate, a lot of stuff will grow there, decent soil in most places, good area for rainfall collection, not too much that would be attractive to terrorists, not much acid rain. Build a nice straw-bale house and ride out the earthquakes.

Sue

I consider it to be My house. Others with weapons, mental fortitude, health, military and police training, and the desire to do harm to those who would do harm to them might also have a safe resting place. I like the way you think, Blitz. Come on down.

Southern New Mexico rarely suffers a tornado, hasn;t had a flood in thousands and thousands of years, doesn;t have hurricanes or the geological propensity for earthquakes, hasn;t had an ice age in....well, ages..... is near two military bases filled with men and women who (see the desire to do harm statement above).......

All in all....southern New Mexico is maybe not as safe as my home, but it's in the neighborhood at least. ((( )))

I’m sure there are lots of places that are safe to live. Or as safe as you could expect someplace to be. Sure an asteroid could land on your home tonight, but it’s not something you can plan to avoid. But even for those of us that do live in a less then perfect place can still pay attention to weather and plan to deal with it and minimize the risk.

Here in Toledo the only real weather problems we have are tornados, they are extremely selective in who gets attacked so it’s not a big risk and the local Skywarn (Amateur radio emergency group) is very good at working with the national weather service and getting info out and tracking them. I have friends that live to go chase tornados and report on them. Listening to the local Skywarn repeater gives great up to date info on them.

Jericho

From what? Hurricanes? Freezing weather? Earthquakes? Violence? Mosquito's? Spiders? Alligators? Bears? Scorpions? Bad neighbors?

It really depends on what you consider a threat.



-JRJ

"It really depends on what you consider a threat."

I think they meant safe as in a low-priority terrorist target, and natural disasters that can be dealt with.

Personally, the idea of living in Florida doesn't do a thing for me. Imagine being bitten by a poisonous snake just before a major hurricane, after N. Korea has bombed all the military bases in the state. All of which happens after the tsunami that hits the state broadside from the east, and just before the Okefenokee becomes an active, erupting volcano spewing live alligators all over the area. I would classify this sort of thing as unsafe.

Sue

I'm with you Sue...FL seems to have too many "options". While Upstate New York has its own dangers (let the jokes commence), I'll be returning there after being gone for almost 28 years due to military service. It is time to go home. I'll take the blizzards, crazy taxes, and nutty politicians, it's just time to go home. It is safe enough for me.

You'll never escape the crazy taxes and nutty politicians.

Sue

I think you make a very good point. If the many prolific poisonous snakes, voracious gators, man-eating sharks, brain-eating amoebas or mosquitoes packing encephalitis and West Nile virus don't get you and ... darling could you get my back with a squirt of that suntan lotion ... did you notice how pretty those birds are coming off the water like that ...

Where was I ... Ah yes ... and if the historically inevitable tsunami fails to show up and you live through the eight months of viciously active and perilous hurricane season you might just get out of here alive to make your way to somewhere safe and civilized like ... honey, could you get me another frosty beer ... thanks ... like maybe Montana.

For God's sake don't even think of coming down here. As you can tel we are perpetually on the edge of oblivion. In the name of all that is holy I advise you to avoid coming anywhere near the murderous hell-hole and constant state of mind-bending anxiety that is Florida.

Honey ... you want to stay here and soak up some more sun or join me on the beach ... we could down to that restaurant on the beach you like ... we better put on tee-shirts and sandals ... they have a strict shirt and shoes rule ... fanatical barbarians.

Susan - I wholeheartedly agree. SW Oregon, or just about anyplace else for that matter, would be better than Florida.

Ready honey? ... Wow ... look at that sunset ... and the warm breeze is nice. It doesn't get much better than this. Have I ever told you how great you look? They say somewhere around here there is a volcano that spouts alligators ... maybe we can ask around after we eat ... they probably charge an entry fee ...

Is this before, or after, blue-haired old ladies beat you with their canes, while it rains hanging chads, as boat-refugees drown you in hot sauce? (what other stereotypes can I hit?)

Susan you need to come on down for a visit, here are a couple of new friends for you.

Yes.

Thanks Stretch if you can brew your own beer then I'm there!

Thanks, Ray, but I've seen those things close up and I don't like them at all. Please consider them a gift from me to you.

Sue

I'm jealous, call me Honey too.

When I daydream about such things, I put a few parameters on the equation:

1. I'm not going to worry about asteroids or gamma ray beams. Anything that will terminate a significant portion of the planet's surface isn't anything I can handle.

2. I only have to worry about the next 30-50 years, enough to see me off this mortal coil, and perhaps to give a head start to the offspring.

3. Water is going to be a huge problem. (It already is in the Southwest and in Georgia.) So you want to be somewhere near the headwaters of a traditionally water-rich region. And you have to take into effect the shift of temperate regions to the north with global climate warming.

4. Nowhere near major cities, but someplace with adequate employment opportunities in your chosen profession, enough nearby farming and industrial/manufacturing so that you're not as dependent on trucking essentials in at $300+/barrel diesel. We're all going to have to learn to buy local.

5. We're going to want to generate a fairly reliable amount of electricity at the home, so reliable wind or southern solar exposure and fewer rules on deploying a generation system would be useful.

6. Decent medical facilities and personnel nearby. We are long overdue for either a man-made or naturally-sourced pandemic, and both isolation and access to medical intervention will be important, the isolation obviously to prevent exposure but also to buy time for the pandemic outbreak to be recognized with more time to prepare for the 3-5 months everyone will be locked down while the authorities get through the usual period of incompetence and begin to get a handle on things, distributing effective meds.

7. Reasonably distant from political and military targets of opportunity, and preferably upwind. These days the biggest threats are single to several incident terrorist events and accidental launches from decaying Russian missile silos and storage depots. I live directly east of Washington DC in Maryland and we all know how big the target painted on this town is.

Except for that ice cave in Norway where they're storing the farming seed stocks for recovery after "doomsday" I can't think of too many places that would qualify. But after all that, and thinking about how hard it would be to convince the DW that we should relocate away from her steady, relatively high-paying federal job, family and friends just because "something" might happen, I usually just stick my head in the sand and cross my fingers that heart disease will get me first.

I can tell you, there is at least one of them in the US. I ain't saying where.

A lot of you might disagree, but I say New York City (where I grew up).
Sure, its a terrorist target, but statistically terrorism is very unlikely to kill you.

Advantages:
-Medical care. NYC has some of the best hospitals in the world, and you can get to them quickly compared to somewhere outside of a city where there are long driving times involved in emergency care.

-You don't need to drive. My family doesn't even own a car. Look at the number of people killed in car crashes every year (about 42,000) and suddenly things like terrorism (2,000 7 years ago, once) don't seem like much of a danger. Another 20,000 die each year from the flu... kind of make you wonder if we could make America safer by putting money other places.

-No real natural disasters.

Disadvantages:
-Air pollution
-More crime than rural areas (though not too bad)
-Might be underwater in 100 years
-Terrorism

Anyway, my .02

I think the toughest thing about NYC is that if anything does happen. If we ever get a decent hurricane, there may be a whole lot of people displaced and may be few resources for anyone who remains. If you think about foraging for food or fuel in NYC, there is a very limited supply, relative to other areas.

However that said, show me any place that has people that behaved better than New Yorkers did when things went wrong over the past seven years.

Hmmm. The benign MidWest is invisible again... Good.

Precisely where I live in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, the most exciting things are occasional floods (I live "on the hill", way above even the most extreme ice melt scenarios) and routine annual power outages of a day or 6 due to winter storms.

Tornadoes are for the folks who live farther out of the valley in the flat areas. But not often.

On the other hand, I have to travel elsewhere for adventure.

I did have to dodge a large Tom Turkey strutting in the street this morning on the way to work and 6 deer sauntering up my cul de sac this evening on my way home.

But we have industry, major road, rail, and barge networks, farm chemicals, etc. so I guess it's not quite perfect. <sigh> Life is so fatal...

Tom

Ayers---you need to get up river farther===

Hmm, the place I have in mind doesn't flood, has minimal tectonic potential, is not in any fallout path from eruptions, nuclear/chemical/biological attacks, or industrial accidents, is not prone to wildfire, has moderately low precipitation, a decent water table, moderately arable land, averages one or two thunderstorms a year, decent wildlife population, is in a migratory waterowl flyway, several surface waterways, enough regular wind to make windpower practical year round, relatively inexpensive land, relatively low population density, and fairly easy access. It's only drawback would be it is at least an hour drive to the nearest hospital or other major service.

Oh yeah, and I wish I was there now.

Ben,

After I win the lottery tonight we'll have to talk.

Blitz

Even if you find your perfect location there is no guarantee it will stay perfect.

One county over a family set up their rural paradise. forty acres with a spring on site. A well built house, barn and machinery shed. A half dozen cattle and a couple score goats. A large garden that looked to be most of an acre.

Problem popped up when a couple of years into their homesteading exercise, and unknown to them, a small agricultural chemical concern set up shop a short distance upwind of their little bit of heaven. They had a small and nondescript warehouse full of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. Which produced a toxic cloud when the warehouse caught fire one night.

All the people got out alright. Most of the animals were poisoned and a few died. Most unfortunately the land was made semi-permanently unsuitable for grazing and crop cultivation. Even the stream was made unusable. Speculation is that the land will detoxify itself in a decade or so. They tried to sue the company but it is owned by a couple of small-time farmers who have nothing. Insurance company claims the fire started from a lightning strike and so it is 'an act of God'.

Sometimes you can't win for losing. Life is hazardous, 'You pays your money and takes your chances', and nobody get out of here alive. You do the best you can and accept the fact that your not entirely in control and that, in the end, we will all slip and fall. The best you can do is stack the deck in your favor a bit.

Now isn't that typical?

You're right though, no getting out of life alive. I guess thats why most people have children, to create a legacy...

Not for me though.


Blitz

I don't know about this.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9131261/

Opinions?

Blitz

I'd have to say my house is about the safest place i can think of. Located on a mountain in a small rural town in northern Alabama, a few miles from the Tennessee River. Water was never a problem, even with the recent drought conditions. Our whole neighborhood is wooded, so we could probably live off wild edibles for at least a few months, and our next-door neighbor has chickens, so we'd have eggs if nothing else; or we could eat his guineas. During my lifetime there've only been a few incidences of theft, and those were all by the same pair of punks who have long since moved to another state. I don't remember ever hearing about a murder(this IS rural AL, so that probably has something to do with the law of common sense that says "noone ever tries to massacre at a gun show.") The last time we had truly serious weather was in 1997 when an ice storm knocked out the power for a few days. Being on the highest point of land, flooding isn't a worry. There's never been a tornado within twenty miles of us. i don't think there's ever been an earthquake here in recorded history. The only thing i'd worry about is the Brown's Ferry nuclear plant, but the odds of that ever being a problem are virtually nil. It could be a potential terrorist target, but with all the other things to bomb in this country, I can't see them bothering with it; it just wouldn't kill enough people. I don't know how fast fallout would travel, but i think it would take long enough to cross the 28 mile between us and the plant for us to bug out.

Apparently, in that article at least, "safety" only related to natural stuff, i.e. weather. Silly me, I think that there is more to safety than natural disasters. The homicide/rape/assault/burgulary/other crime rates mean something to me also. Why live in a location with no severe weather if you are afraid to go to the store after 3pm???

Home, protected by the beast...

Well, I agree that the list does discount everything that isn't directly related to nature. Still although they didn't put it on there, they did get close to where I believe the safest place is, factoring in the other safety issues as well.

If you include crime and the recklessness of others, then you can certainly take Yakima and Spokane off the 10 best list. I doubt they'd even make the top 100.

Crime is a concern. But crime rates can be both deceiving and quite variable.

Crime can be a quite local affair. You can look up the crime rate of a city and easily overlook that the crime is largely limited to a few neighborhoods and a relatively small sector of the population. Stay out of those few blocks and from around those people and your actual risk is far less than what the crime statistics would otherwise suggest.

Even in the wrong neighborhood and among the wrong people there are some subsets of people who defy the statistics. Awareness, attitude, how you look and what your role is in the area can shift the odds in or against you. Nobody is entirely safe but some people consistently beat the odds.

Also it has to be noted that some of the worse, bloodiest and most egregious crimes have happened in rural areas. Areas with low crime rates and where people thought they were safe. When things go south in an isolated area they often go bad in a very big way.

Also crime is shifting. Gangs, under pressure from police and looking for easy pickings and gullible youths looking for thrills and acceptance, are moving into the rural areas. Marijuana growers and meth labs have also moved into the countryside. Some rural counties, areas which had little or no serious crime, now have higher violent crime rates than nearby cities. Cities that are still assumed to be more dangerous.

I don't think people can draw conclusions without careful study. Even if your relatively safe from street crime now it doesn't mean a gang or meth lab won't move in and change things. Unfortunately poor rural counties seldom have the resources to effectively deal with a crime wave.

That's why I will build my house with the same mindset as a spider building a web.

Here is some info on crime within the U.S. states and which ones have the worst rates. New Hampshire is said to be the safest, while Nevada is the worst, in this regard. http://www.cqpress.com/product/Crime-State-Rankings-2008.html