[neilv]

The last several years, every time I consider the idea of someday moving back to Portland, I always think of this "The Big One" article.

(With my mixed luck, the PNW mega-shark-quake-nami is just waiting for me to move back, so that'd really be irresponsible of me.)

[b3morales]

Are there not natural disaster risks everywhere? Floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes...

[fullstackchris]

The northeast is pretty damn 'safe', as long as you can handle the occassional downed tree and subsequent power outage.

[Blammar]

Except for an occasional mild snowstorm, Antarctica looks pretty safe (as long as you're upwind from Mt. Erebus.)

8-)

[objectivetruth]

Floods, fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes only produce grave threats to the individual towns, cities, and maybe some multi-county regions that they cross. For individual incidents, we're relatively prepared beforehand and we know how to respond afterward.

There's no comparison to having nearly everything in multiple states obliterated to the point that rescue takes weeks or months to arrive. We're not equipped to instantly support millions of refugees in the US. Moving hundreds of thousands of people for Katrina was probably at the upper limit of what we can effectively do (for various definitions of "effectively"). A killer quake out west could have 10 million refugees.