Worst Places in the U.S. for Natural Disasters

Overview of the various natural disasters that can affect the U.S. and which regions of the country are the worst for each hazard. I look at hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, blizzards, and volcanoes and the geographic distribution of each. Not every state has equal risk and vulnerability to disasters and here I analyze the best and worst, safest and most dangerous, places for natural disasters in the U.S.

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Album displayed:
Kiss: "Kiss" (1974)

0:00 Intro
0:52 Hurricanes
5:06 Nor'easters
6:00 Riverine Floods
7:50 Tornadoes
8:45 Wildfires
10:32 Earthquakes
12:44 Volcanoes
14:09 Summary

[iammrbeat]

I highly recommend a book called "Strategic Relocation." It goes into great detail a lot of the stuff you brought up.

[deneentorkelson]

Michigan might be cold, but we usually don’t get severe tornadoes, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no mud slides, and not a ton of fires. In terms of natural disasters, we are pretty boring.

[adannycamacho]

One natural disaster that often gets missed but is one that causes many deaths is heat waves. This would include huge swaths of the southern USA, desert southwest, central plains, Ohio valley, and southeast coastal plains.

[jsmith]

I would much rather deal with a blizzard than a hurricane, or most other types of disasters. I have lived through many blizzards and ice storms. My house was heated with a wood stove. So if the power went out, we still had heat, we could keep our perishable food cold by putting it outside, and we could cook food on the wood stove. If needed, we could melt snow for sanitation needs, such as washing dishes or bathing. We could read or play games by candlelight for entertainment.

[johngayer]

A lot of us probably thought western North Carolina would be safe from natural disasters, especially hurricanes. I did anyway. I didn't take into account the rivers that funnel water into the area. It's awful to see what has been done to such a beautiful area. And awesome Asheville NC, one of my favorite places, has a lot of recovering to do.

Thanks Kyle. Another great video.

[bobgardin]

It'd be nice to see a map that overlays all of the natural disasters. With overlap shading, the most to least impacted areas can be easily visualized.

[MagicWandn]

left side gets earthquakes and fire, middle gets tornados, right side gets hurricanes, upside you become popsickle

[Steve-]

The deadliest fire in U.S. history was the Peshtigo Wi fire, some of that had to do with poor logging practices though leaving huge brush piles sitting around etc. The same day was the Chicago fire which took all the media attention at the time.

[DalokiMauvais]

This is a picky little thing that I thank you A WHOLE LOT for getting right. I've seen a bunch of natural disaster videos in the last several months, and nobody - until now - has pronounced "New Madrid" fault correctly. That drives me nuts. I was on the 6th (top) floor of a small office building far north of the epicenter of the 1968 New Madrid earthquake. We felt it. Not severely, but the building shook. I learned in the days after how to pronounce "New MAD-rid, " and have never forgotten.

[JCDofNYC]

Your Majesty, the King! I'm loving these new "event" based videos. You have done an excellent job diversifying your content and consistently bringing to your viewers new and different ways to think about geography. It ain't just state capitols anymore! Thanks, Kyle! Long Live the King!!!!

Along the lines of this video, I'm currently living in Northeast Ohio (still own my place in NYC, but work sends me all over creation!), and I have to say that other than the very infrequent tornadoes, it seems relatively free from meteorological and geological mayhem. Even snowfall has been infrequent. I've been on the assignment since 2022, and in the two winters I've been here, we had two significant snow storms, and in both instances, the snow turned to slush within 48 hours. All said and done, the Cleveland-Akron area is pretty risk free.

[TwistedTypewriter]

Just went through Helene's wrath in Western NC. I live right beside a creek. After that experience, I really don't ever want to live beside any body of water again. You are absolutely right about the power and dangers of water. I spent 30 years in FL dealing with hurricanes, but Helene gave me a whole new perspective.

[H.O.P.E.]

I like your diverse of the facts. Thorough and not sensationistic.

[tbc]

Great video and very informative. I guess the key is that nowhere is immune to natural disasters, but certain areas are certainly less prone.

[johncarter]

Columbia, SC, reporting in. You forgot about fire ants. I always enjoy your videos, Kyle.

[dancingmeerkat]

Thank you to the YouTube algorithm for putting this video in my feed. This was a great video. Well done!

[hedonism-bot]

8:42 just bought our first house in Fort Worth, TX last summer, and one of the major factors that led us to buy this one is it already had an above ground tornado shelter installed in the garage. We haven’t gotten A TON of tornadoes recently, but it’s great to know if we do, my family and pets will be safe

[herschelwright]

I live in the Canadian province of Manitoba which is safe from most natural disasters. Sure there are occasional blizzards and flooding every now and then but I would take those over hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis or volcanoes any day.

[planesandbikes]

You missed a couple. One which we worry about most of all on the west coast: Tsunami. Like volcanoes it's very infrequent but could have the potential to kill millions of people and wipe out exposed cities. I think it is more of a worry than earthquakes here in Victoria BC even though we are an earthquake hot spot. West coast, Alaska and Hawaii are all vulnerable to tsunami. I am oceanfront about 15 feet above sea level. I should also mention landslides and lahar, which have wiped out entire towns in the West of the continent.

[jeffgerndt]

I always enjoy your videos! Good work.

[Jarekthegamingdragon]

The pacific northwest, especially oregon, has become super screwed over with wildfires recently. It seems every year oregon has the biggest in the country. I'd like california to take that title back.