Prepare for natural disasters

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/business/storm-weather-ho…

**Preparing Financially, Before the Storm Hits**

**With the cost and frequency of weather-driven disasters on the rise, taking steps to be ready is more crucial than ever.**
**By Tara Siegel Bernard, The New York Times, Aug. 23, 2022**

**...**
**The statistics are striking. Over the past 42 years, an annual average of 7.7 weather-related events caused at least $1 billion each in damage to residences, businesses and municipalities, according to an analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.**

**But from 2017 to 2021, the average was 17.8 such events per year....**

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This is a long article with many good suggestions and links.

https://riskfactor.com/ shows flood risk. We live on a ridge so we don’t have flood risk but millions of people do. The link shows a map where extreme flood events have increased over the past 30 years, including the inland west which is currently being flooded.

https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/information… is a hazard map for earthquakes. When we moved to Sequim, WA I wasn’t aware that we were moving into a high-risk earthquake zone.

Much of the article discusses insurance. Read your policy’s fine print.

It’s amazing how much stuff we have. Create a home inventory.
https://uphelp.org/buying-tips/how-to-create-a-home-inventor…
https://content.naic.org/consumer/home-inventory

Scan all your important documents. Keep them on a flash drive which you can take with you if you evacuate your home. Also keep a copy in your safe deposit box or in the cloud. It’s a good idea to keep a copy of your insurance documents on your phone. Friends of mine were on vacation when their home burned to the ground.

Between wildfires and floods, it seems that summer and fall are the most dangerous seasons.

This has Macro impact because millions of people are affected and billions of dollars are spent recovering from natural disasters. The impact of climate change may make some of the most populated areas of the world uninhabitable.

Wendy

3 Likes

All good points. I’ll add only one more. We have a small safe, easy to carry. We have it not to prevent theft (too easy to carry), but to prevent damage in fire or flood. Birth certificates, car titles, passports, SS cards, etc. They are all there. If we had to flee it would be something we grab because it is just one thing to grab for all important papers. If house burns down when we are gone, well hopefully it really is fire proof. But it beats a filing cabinet!