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by pests 971 days ago
Michigan is pretty safe. We get tornados but that's about it. Not much poisonous or dangerous wildlife besides bears - just stay out of the wilderness.

Not to mention a huge supply of fresh water.

4 comments

> Michigan is pretty safe.

> We get tornados but that's about it.

those two things seem at odds.

Haha. I should say "other areas" in Michigan - 35 years here and I've never seen one with my own eye besides some ambiguous scary looking clouds.
Crippling boredom
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloomy

Winter probably kills more people than earthquakes.
It's a slow danger most of the time. People have time to prepare or leave. Earthquakes are very sudden.
...and surprisingly non-lethal, at least for the M6.5-7ish earthquakes in developed countries, similar to what would hit SF.

Loma Prieta killed 63 people. Northridge killed 57. The 2011 Christchurch earthquake killed 185. By contrast, about 30 people die every year from cold, 134 from heat, 44 from being hit by lightning, 85 from flooding, 69 from tornadoes [1], 103 from mass shootings, 21K from gun-related homicide, 26K from gun-related suicide [2], 70K from fentanyl [3], and 280K from obesity [4]. For completeness, excluding 9/11 about 15 people die per year from terrorism [5], with median 2 and mode 0.

Note the 3-order-of-magnitude difference between headline-worthy deaths like natural disasters and terrorism, vs. slow dangers like homicide, suicide, overdose, or obesity. You're about 7 times more likely to die from being struck by lightning than an earthquake.

[1] https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-People-Ex...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-...

[3] https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...

[4] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192032

[5] https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths...