What do you fear most in the city where you live?

[Buckeye Native 001]

Earthquakes aren't as prevalent in the Midwest as they are in the West Coast (even Arizona gets a tremor from time to time) but the New Madrid fault caused some havoc in the past.

I vaguely remember doing earthquake drills in first grade at my suburban Cincinnati elementary school in 1990 because someone predicted that the area was going to be hit by a quake that never happened. Then again, I think seeing all the damage caused by the Loma Prieta quake a year earlier during the World Series on TV spooked some of us. I know that was the reason I always felt some unease when stopped at a traffic light under freeway overpasses when I lived in Orange County.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by edale

I find this to be quite sad, and I'm sorry you have to deal with it. My parents are retiring to the Charleston, SC area, and whenever I visit, I feel a latent air of homophobia. It's enough to make me uncomfortable visiting, and I can't imagine living in a place like that.

Cincinnati is a pretty conservative metro, but I've never felt the same level of discomfort there as I have in Charleston. Cincy actually feels pretty queer friendly, oddly enough.

Have you watched the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"?

• Video Link

It's about Savannah, not Charleston, but not that much difference.

[pdxtex]

Newly elected District Attorneys and catalytic converter thieves!

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Yeah unstable lake Michigan levels is my top fear too

Right now L. Michigan is quite high, correct? Are the lake side streets flooded sometimes?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Right now L. Michigan is quite high, correct? Are the lake side streets flooded sometimes?

the lake was extremely high last year, but lake levels have come down drastically since then, about -13" YOY compared to october of last year.

and of course, each and every year, the lake goes through its annual cycle of high water mark (summer) and low water mark (winter), averaging about 2 feet of difference between them.

that said, the lake is still +18" up from long-term october averages, but that's still a whole better than where we were a year ago, with MASSIVE erosion issues all around the lakes last summer.



over the course of my life living near the shore of a great lake, i've witnessed several back and forth macro-swings from high lake levels to low lake levels, but what feels different now is that the cycles appear to be getting compressed.

what used to take a decade+ to go from near-record highs to near-record lows is now happening within 5 years or so.

climate change? maybe. no one is excatly sure how the lakes are being (or will be) affected.

[TWAK]

Fires and large animals that can eat my animals.
Crime? I will take everything from them if they look at me funny.

[ATXboom]

NIMBYs

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Seattle doesn't have many natural disasters, as far as I am aware, but the winters are long and wet.

My mom (who is no longer with us) grew up in Everett and went through two quakes, a 6.3 and a 7.1, three years apart, when she was a teenager. She was pretty much terrified of quakes for the rest of her life.

As someone else posted above, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which runs from Northern California to British Columbia, is capable of causing quakes of 9 on the Richter scale. Portland and Seattle are the only major cities in the Lower 48 susceptible to quakes of that magnitude. Last one was in 1700.

Read this New Yorker piece if you want to be kept up at night: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...really-big-one

ETA: By the way, there is an active, unrelated earthquake fault that runs East-West just south of Downtown Seattle.

ETA2: That heatwave Seattle had this past summer was a natural disaster... *A*N*D* ...you have an active stratovolcano 60 miles from Seattle.

[bilbao58]

What do you fear most in the city where you live?

That I'll never escape.

[10023]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why wouldn't they?

Because it’s a long-term, macro shift with very complex effects. You can’t get a particularly heavy rain and say “oh, that’s climate change”. There have always been unusually heavy rainfalls.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by 10023

Because it’s a long-term, macro shift with very complex effects. You can’t get a particularly heavy rain and say “oh, that’s climate change”. There have always been unusually heavy rainfalls.

In the last 20-30 years I've personally seen the sustained end of summer heat in Texas change from the third week of September to the third week of October. I have seen in the last 10 years a marked increase in the frequency of extreme rainfall events in and around Houston. These are changes I have personally seen in my adulthood. It's possible we're just going through a "weird spell." But it may be something else. One of the concerns about climate change is that "macro shifts" may accelerate to the point of being not-so macro.

[suburbanite]

It's disingenuous to point to a single, specific weather event and cite climate change as the cause. It's also willful ignorance to not accept that climate change has been and is going to continue to increase the volatility and severity of extreme weather events.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by 10023

As a former Chicagoan, I don’t really follow?

I would think any Chicagoan’s main fear would be the city’s and state’s god awful fiscal situations, and what this means for taxes, public services and economic growth.

Because one way or another, that's a policy problem which can be solved (or it can be solved by inflation...). But if Lake Michigan gets significantly higher than last year, that would be catastrophic.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

Because it’s a long-term, macro shift with very complex effects. You can’t get a particularly heavy rain and say “oh, that’s climate change”. There have always been unusually heavy rainfalls.

Unusually heavy isn't the same as record setting. Of course there are always "unusually heavy" rainfalls. Weather patterns have never been static, so something has to be "unusually heavy". But Extreme events, which are events that go beyond anything that has ever been seen before in recorded history, are becoming more common. That is climate change.

New York set two hourly rainfall records within the span of two weeks. The first record was during a tropical storm, and was the largest all-time-high increase on record. It's not exactly shocking that a record was set during a tropical storm, but that was a 10% increase which was the largest increase in at least the past 50 years. A week later, a new record was set with a 40% increase over the record set just one week before, and nearly 50% more than the previously standing record. It also happened during what was expected to be a more routine weather event.

[Yuri]

The warmest month in São Paulo is usually January. The average high was 27C/81F and the average low 18C/64F. Quite confortable, cool summers.

On the past 7 years or so, the January average high jumped to 30C/86F and all time records were broken at least 20 times in this period (37C/96F now).

Said that, I honestly don't worry about climate changes from a personal point of view. I don't think I'll witness a major climate event in the next 20 years that will impact me personally here in the city.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

A week later, a new record was set with a 40% increase over the record set just one week before, and nearly 50% more than the previously standing record. It also happened during what was expected to be a more routine weather event.

Yep. That's what we've seen in/around Houston. Non-tropical weather events that rival the tropical. Sixteen inches of rain in a tropical storm is not unusual. A 16-inch rain event without the tropical storm is unusual, but not unheard of. Several of those events over a period of a few years is unusual.

[SlidellWx]

Flooding...whether from hurricanes or heavy rains. The price of living at or below sea level and relying on an intricate network of pumping stations to keep the metro area above the water line.

[10023]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Because one way or another, that's a policy problem which can be solved (or it can be solved by inflation...). But if Lake Michigan gets significantly higher than last year, that would be catastrophic.

It’s still what I would fear most, by far.

[10023]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Unusually heavy isn't the same as record setting. Of course there are always "unusually heavy" rainfalls. Weather patterns have never been static, so something has to be "unusually heavy". But Extreme events, which are events that go beyond anything that has ever been seen before in recorded history, are becoming more common. That is climate change.

New York set two hourly rainfall records within the span of two weeks. The first record was during a tropical storm, and was the largest all-time-high increase on record. It's not exactly shocking that a record was set during a tropical storm, but that was a 10% increase which was the largest increase in at least the past 50 years. A week later, a new record was set with a 40% increase over the record set just one week before, and nearly 50% more than the previously standing record. It also happened during what was expected to be a more routine weather event.

And before that record was set, there was another record set at some earlier time.

People who are concerned about mankind’s impact on the planet seriously undermine their cause when they make such simplistic claims and frankly ridiculous statements.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by edale

I find this to be quite sad, and I'm sorry you have to deal with it. My parents are retiring to the Charleston, SC area, and whenever I visit, I feel a latent air of homophobia. It's enough to make me uncomfortable visiting, and I can't imagine living in a place like that.

Cincinnati is a pretty conservative metro, but I've never felt the same level of discomfort there as I have in Charleston. Cincy actually feels pretty queer friendly, oddly enough.

I think what the country and locals don't get about what was so unusual about Cincinnati was that the Italian Mafia was in complete control of Newport, KY and Campbell County for many decades and so the Cincinnati city fathers did absolutely everything to keep them from gaining a foothold anywhere in Hamilton County. That's why Cincinnati and Hamilton County became a decidedly anti-vice place - no sexually-oriented businesses of the kind the mafia operated were permitted, which back then included gay and lesbian bars. Even after the mafia exited the area in the 1970s after the supper club fire, Cincinnati and Hamilton County politicians kept pushing traditional family values through the late 1990s because it remained a winner at the polls. People were so used it and had living memories of how out-of-control things had been directly across the river for many decades.

It's crazy to see the names holding office in Newport and Campbell County today - still tons of the same Italian family names that held office back when the mafia ran the place. http://www.newportky.gov/City-Commis...issioners.aspx