Chart of the Day - 12.17.2008
| Wed Dec. 17, 2008 10:52 AM PST
CHART OF THE DAY....From "Spatial patterns of natural hazards mortality in the United States," this map shows where you're most likely to die from natural disasters. (Data is from 1970-2004.) As you can see, my hometown of Orange County is one of the safest places in the country, despite its worryingly close proximity to the San Andreas fault. You see, although you may think that earthquakes are dangerous, it turns out they are a mere rounding error when it comes to dying at the hands of nature's awesome wrath. By far the biggest causes of death by natural disaster are cold weather, hot weather, lightning, flooding, and tornadoes. Earthquake deaths are so microscopic they don't even get a category or their own.
On the other hand, we're still waiting for the Big One out here. This map could change color at any time.
(By the way, just eyeballing this, it looks to me like Massachusetts is the safest state in the union. Connecticut and Rhode Island are pretty good too. Who knew?)
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Kevin Drum: we're still waiting for the Big One out here. This map could change color at any time.
At least native Californians can joke about it - the transplants have no sense of humor. My brother has lived in Silicon Valley for 30 years and still gets upset whenever we ask if he wants to share in our investment in Nevada beach front property.
Interestingly my neck of the woods is also in the lowest danger category, but another Long Island Express could change that in a hurry. Did I mention that I'm glad my house is 200 feet above sea level? (an extreme altitude around here).
I wonder about the degree to which this map is correlated with a map of where poor people live, or where folks don't have health insurance. My sense is that deaths are likely to result as much from lack of health care (and probably inadequately funded public services) as from the actual natural disaster.
Without diving too much into the report, it says right there on the chart: "Ratios". As is ratio of people who died from natural disasters compared to those who didn't. Blue doesn't really make those places safe, it makes those places populous. If every town or city in America had a natural disaster that killed 100 people every year, small town USA would look awful dangerous! More people die of non-disasters in LA because there are so many freakin people there.
The report even says on page 9 (pg 10 of the pdf) under 'Mapping' says that SMRs are crappy at accounting for differences in population structure between counties.
Sounds like a good effort with crappy data and a lame execution.
I thought this was red-state/blue-state again when I first saw it. Looks like death rate correlates pretty closely with voting Republican. Apart from the obvious wisecracks, it just shows how much is caused by a small set of basic demographic variables.
What the hell is killing people in that small red blotch covering far northwestern CA and far southwestern OR?
Sasquatch.
But that doesn't explain the danger zone in central Maine which is very sparsely populated.
Also, it would be interesting to see some numbers attached, even relative ones. Is a red area 10x as dangerouss as blue, 2x, or somewhere in between?
"But that doesn't explain the danger zone in central Maine which is very sparsely populated."
Looks like there and AZ, and some others could be: Joe Blow goes into the wilderness and is overwhelmed by extreme weather. As noted, these are ratios. So if the nobody actually lives in these places (the blob in Maine is unpopulated wilderness) nobody dies of natural causes. But of the few who do venture there, the few who do die, ill-equipped for the harsh conditions, make up a high ratio of the total.
So yeah, there's some pretty misleading data in this chart.
Submitted by Crissa (not verified) on Wed Dec. 17, 2008 12:51 PM PST.
Looks to me that you're safer from natural disasters in an area that has a positive economy than from a negative economy (during the study time period)
I take this from my knowledge of the economic conditions on the west coast.
The other suggestion would urban area vs rural, as there don't seem to be any urban areas that aren't bright blue.
OK, coastal peninsular Florida is relatively less dangerous. Yeah, right. Somehow my property insurance company doesn't think so.
Sarah has it right for the bulk of the data - it's just an inverse population density map with some statistical noise thrown in, which happens to juice up the low-population counties a bit more.
Without diving too much into the report, it says right there on the chart: "Ratios". As is ratio of people who died from natural disasters compared to those who didn't. Blue doesn't really make those places safe, it makes those places populous.
Sarah: They say explicitly that they corrected for high variability in low-population areas. I'm not familiar with their "empirical-bayes operation" but at least they made some effort to deal with the issue.
Submitted by Alan in Elk Grove (not verified) on Wed Dec. 17, 2008 1:17 PM PST.
At a glance, it seems that the "red states" are also predominately the higher risk states. Maybe it has something to do with rednecks and red-asses. Just a thought...
But that doesn't explain the danger zone in central Maine which is very sparsely populated
Posted by: thersites
I agree. Given all the blue in Southern California, what if the Safer and the More Dangerous labels should actually be reversed?
Would this map make more sense?
Thersites, :)
I have lived in New York, New Jersey, Florida, California and Mass.
No place made me fear for my life on the roads like Massachusetts. Somebody once told me when I first moved there, "there are no traffic laws here, only traffic suggestions." They weren't kidding.
Massachusetts safe?...Only if you stay home and never drive anyplace.
Last time I checked Massachusetts had the safest roads in the union (based on fatalities). Plenty of collisions, mind you, but high population density makes for slow moving traffic, which in turn makes for fewer fatal accidents (but plenty of fender benders).
But that doesn't explain the danger zone in central Maine which is very sparsely populated...
Er, why exactly do you find it inexplicable that a sparsely populated area might suffer a high incidence of death from natural disasters? What I don't understand is why people find this hard to understand. Indeed it could hardly be any other way. Except for earthquakes, natural disasters tend to be less lethal in big cities and urban areas, because on average you're going to find yourself much closer to a strong structure where you can take shelter. I'd much rather be on street here in Boston than in a Kansas wheat field were I ever to spot funnel clouds in the distance.
How about a graph on the number of street people to the amount of illegal drugs coming into the Country. or High school dropout and crime rise in urban areas-your charts are nice but don't get into the nitty gritty good stuff on the U.S. plunging into a third world nation!
The blob in north-central Maine is almost certainly Baxter State Park. Like any such place, there are almost no residents, but plenty of people visit and do physically dangerous activities (climbing Mt. Katahdin in the winter). If you get hurt there, you're a long way from nowhere, on a dirt road.
It could also include the "unorganized territories" (a.k.a. the township-range area) which is sparsely inhabited, but not uninhabited. I knew a guy in high school whose place of birth was "T2R9, Maine." They aren't particularly dangerous, unless you run into a moose with your car, drive your pickup truck onto a pond to ice fish when the ice isn't thick enough, or get yourself in trouble that requires quick assistance.
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