Jump to content

West Michigan 7th Best Disaster Free Region

GRDadof3

By GRDadof3
in Grand Rapids Coffee House

Recommended Posts

GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

Posted
Posted

West Michigan was ranked 7th in the country for regions not prone to natural disasters by Risk & Insurance Magazine:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ss...2150.xml&coll=6

I posted a couple of maps on the general discussion board in a topic about disaster-prone areas a couple of months back:

74507565_583b137468_o.jpg

Sure is nice being blue:

74507564_badba4b80c_o.jpg

These maps don't even include earthquakes or grass-fires. Sure adds to the quality of life not to have to worry about such things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 23
  • Created
  • Last Reply
snoogit Town

snoogit

Posted
Posted

well obviously something must have heppened, because there is no zero in the statistics to say nothing has happened here :P

My guess would be a bad blizzard, probably caused by lake effect. but the only blizzard that comes to mind was before this map statictically counts data (Blizzard of '78), and I wasnt even born when it happened :P (granted the blizz was only 4 years after, but this map covers 1980-now)

ohhh I see what they did:

From: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html#chron

Midwest and Ohio Valley Hail and Tornadoes April 2001. Storms, tornadoes, and hail in the states of TX, OK, KS, NE, IA, MO, IL, IN, WI, MI, OH, KY, WV, and PA, over a 6-day period; over $1.9 billion in damage/costs, with the most significant losses due to hail; at least 3 deaths.

so they lumped us in with the tornado damage even though michigan didnt hit 1 billion on its own. My guess? to not put the false hope that something big might not happen in Michigan, I would say a blizzard, or lake effet could do that much damage if conditions are right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
PBJ Burg

PBJ

Posted
Posted

I always remember the weather being non-volatile in Western Michigan except in 2-3 counties. One of those counties was Allegan. They always had school off :)

I can tell you from working just on the Allegan border.. it sucks here 90% of the year. Sunny warm days at the lake/GR, usually cloudy and windy here. Sunny and 35 in GR in January.. 20 mph winds and heavy snow here.... :rolleyes:

You know when you're getting close to Allegan county when driving on 196 b/c the weather turns crappy... It's like the Bermuda Triangle or something

Link to comment
Share on other sites
GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Some of you guys have turned pessimism into an art form :rofl: The article is in regards to low insurance costs in these regions, thus lower costs of doing business. The only way I could see winter weather causing that much damage is if it was a REALLY bad ice/snow storm, and I've seen some pretty bad ice storms before. "Tornado Alley" pretty much stops in Indiana:

frequency.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
Phizzy Hamlet

Phizzy

Posted
Posted

New stats and map. Michigan is the only purple state.

What is amazing about this is there was only one event affecting Michigan, and that was a 6-day storm event in April 2001 that affected fourteen states, causing $1.9 billion in damage. I believe the extent of damage to Michigan was only a small portion of the $1.9 billion.

Also, many of the states in blue are sparsely populated states (like the Dakotas and Wyoming), were the chances of any weather disaster causing $1 billion is slim.

sx20r9.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
d59 Whistle-Stop

d59

Posted
Posted

I think it just contributes to my thought that the weather around here has become increasingly boring. We don't get any good storms any more, allow me to be the scary one of the group, but it depresses me

Just go without power for 2-3 days and you will find that boring is great! :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Phizzy Hamlet

Phizzy

Posted
Posted

Grand Rapids has to be close to number one safest metro overall for metros with over one million in population, when looking at both crime statistics and weather disaster statistics.

Morgan Quitno Press ranks Grand Rapids 8th safest for crime for metros with over 1,000,000 in population.

Risk and Insurance Magazine ranks Grand Rapids 7th safest for weather for metros with over 1,000,000 in population.

Safest 1,000,000+ Population Metros for Crime

Rank Metro								 

  1  Monmouth-Ocean, NJ				   

  2  Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ	

  3  Bergen-Passaic, NJ				  

  4  Orange County, CA					

  5  Pittsburgh, PA					   

  6  San Jose, CA						

  7  Rochester, NY						

  8  Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland, MI	

  9  Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI		  

 10  Providence-Fall River-Warwick, RI-MA
Safest 1,000,000+ Population Metros for Weather 
Rank Metro

  1  Sacramento, Calif.

  2  Phoenix, Ariz.

  3  Rochester, N.Y.

  4  Columbus, Ohio

  5  Buffalo, N.Y.

  6  Cincinnati, Ohio

  7  Grand Rapids, Mich.

  8  San Diego, Calif.

  9  Pittsburgh, Pa.

 10  Hartford, Conn.

Pittsburgh and Rochester are the only other metros on both lists...

EDIT: Rochester is also on both lists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Grand Rapids has to be close to number one safest metro overall for metros with over one million in population, when looking at both crime statistics and weather disaster statistics.

Morgan Quitno Press ranks Grand Rapids 8th safest for crime for metros with over 1,000,000 in population.

Risk and Insurance Magazine ranks Grand Rapids 7th safest for weather for metros with over 1,000,000 in population.

Pittsburgh is the only other metro on both lists...

Thanks for staying up on this Phizzy! :thumbsup: Why Grand Rapids? Why Michigan? :whistling:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jayblogger Whistle-Stop

jayblogger

Posted
Posted

I've worked in the insurance industry for just over a year now and some things have sunk into my thick head that I'll share. The propensity of big natural disasters is a big factor in determining residential and rental insurance rates, but other factors come in to play. Another big one is the likelyhood of vandalism, arson and fraudulent claims. There are areas in the US that are much more prone to this than others. In parts of the Southeast and Southwest, there are organized rings that are racking up huge losses for insurance companies. But those big red Hurricane dots on the first map are causing the biggest problem for the insurance industry in the gulf/eastern seaboard states right now. Try getting a good insurance rate in a coastal county in Florida: not gonna happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Phizzy Hamlet

Phizzy

Posted
Posted
In parts of the Southeast and Southwest, there are organized rings that are racking up huge losses for insurance companies. But those big red Hurricane dots on the first map are causing the biggest problem for the insurance industry in the gulf/eastern seaboard states right now.
Which makes me wonder...why is there so much planned development in New Orleans, including high rises and homes (see this thread)?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
grcitydog Whistle-Stop

grcitydog

Posted
Posted

And don't forget, even though it is not a weather event, earthquakes on the west coast, which will eventually happen, will cause so many billions of dollars in damage, I can't even comprehend it. I think that this fact plus the weather (which even though crappy at times is not dangerous) puts Michigan at the top of the disaster free scale.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.