Flooded With Surprises

You just might be surprised to find out which of our states experience the most flooding and severe weather.  I know I was when I explored a few states on this website from the folks at FEMA http://www.fema.gov/news/disasters.fema.  

It was kind of fun and educational to select different states and see their recorded storms dating back to the 1950’s.  I learned some surprising facts and figures to share with you and broaden your thinking on the topic of flooding.   Check out my storm count list below dating back to 1970, to provide a fair comparison to each state I reviewed.

33 Maine                            

19 New Hampshire

24 Vermont

15 Massachusetts

6 Connecticut

36 New York

I found it interesting that all the states near us vary so much in their numbers of severe weather, and what’s up with New York having 36?  I certainly didn’t think of New York as a severe weather state.

1 South Carolina

10 North Carolina

Really?  I would have expected South Carolina to be higher due to hurricanes and tropical storms.  Ah yes, North Carolina has the mountains contributing to their weather pattern, but South Carolina is coastal and in the path of every hurricane driving up the east coast.

27 Mississippi

34 Alabama

29 Louisiana

41 Tennessee

30 Arkansas       

Can you believe it?  Maine has a count of 33 compared to these southern states we hear about in the news every year.  Thank goodness for our mountains and hills that distribute the water verses being as flat as these states.   Where there are mountains and hills there are also people that live at the bottom, downstream of the rising water, and these folks have a flooding concern.

38 Texas

39 Oklahoma

28 Iowa

25 Indiana

28 Nebraska

32 California

39 Missouri

There is a lot of severe weather and flooding in these states as well.  I’m surprised to see California is one behind us, in Maine.  Good old sunny California, better pack an umbrella if you are visiting.

12 Hawaii

After all these severe storm and flooding numbers I can’t quite decide where I’d want to live to avoid them.  So I decided to check Hawaii’s storm count.  I found that even in this tropical paradise the storm numbers were an improvement over Maine.   

As I dream of packing a few of my favorite things and heading out to Hawaii, I’ll leave you this one thought.

 It can flood anywhere and unless you have an actual flood insurance policy you don’t have coverage for your home.