Worst Possible Natural Disaster in the US

On the Pacific Northwest, #1 would be a megathrust earthquake off the coastline, followed closely by the eruption of Mount Rainier. The former would produce a magnitude 9 earthquake that would devastate everything west of the Cascades, and an accompanying tsunami that, while it wouldn't do much immediate damage to the region, would flood coastal towns like Coos Bay and Astoria and likely do significant damage in Hawaii. A Rainier eruption, meanwhile, would wipe Tacoma, Washington off the map and cause major ash problems in Seattle and other nearby regions.

For California, I'm gonna go against the conventional wisdom and not suggest an earthquake. The state is too well-prepared for an earthquake; NorCal had the experience of the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, while SoCal had Northridge in 1994. Instead, I'm gonna suggest a major flood in the Sacramento Valley. The entire region is only protected from flooding by a massive polder system; its failure would result in Stockton and Sacramento looking like the Netherlands in 1954. Take a look at this map (meant to simulate rising sea levels from melting glaciers, but just as applicable here) and see how far the water would reach into the Central Valley if the polders failed with just three feet of flooding.

The south's worst-case natural disaster would be a major (category 3+) hurricane hitting Houston, not just for the immediate damage to the area, but for the economic effects. Houston is the heart of the oil industry, home to many, many refineries that would be taken offline for months, if not years, by a hurricane. It would cause an energy crisis comparable to the '70s oil embargoes. Second place, and also first place for the Midwest by default, would be New Madrid, as so many others have pointed out.

The northeast's worst disaster is plainly obvious: a major hurricane hitting New York. Remember: Sandy was just a Category 1, and it devastated the whole area.


In the Netherlands it was February 1953, not 1954, the stormsearch flooded the South West of the country.
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The 1953 North Sea flood (Dutch, Watersnoodramp, literally "flood disaster") was a major flood caused by a heavy storm, that occurred on the night of Saturday 31 January 1953 and morning of 1 February 1953. The floods struck the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.
A combination of a high spring tide and a severe European windstorm caused a storm tide. In combination with a tidal surge of the North Sea the water level locally exceeded 5.6 metres (18.4 ft) above mean sea level. The flood and waves overwhelmed sea defences and caused extensive flooding. The Netherlands, a country that is partly located below mean sea level and relies heavily on sea defences, was mainly affected, recording 1,836 deaths. Most of these casualties occurred in the southern province of Zeeland. In England, 307 people were killed in the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. 19 were killed in Scotland. 28 were killed in West Flanders, Belgium.
Further loss of life exceeding 230 occurred on watercraft along Northern European coasts as well as in deeper waters of the North Sea; the ferry MV Princess Victoria was lost at sea in the North Channel east of Belfast with 133 fatalities, and many fishing trawlers sank.
 
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A CLNG carrier, transiting Boston harbor to offload, igniting and exploding with a force up to 55 times the bomb used at Hiroshima (880,000 Ktons of TNT). Depending upon the time of day, you could have a million people in the city when it happens.

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Torqumada
 
Still nowhere near comparable to the larger of the Yellowstone eruptions, if there's a repeat of the Lava Creek or Huckleberry Ridge explosions then you can kiss CONUS good-bye pretty much.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Two potential nuclear disasters that are earthquake related:

Indian Point is the nuclear reactor with the highest probability of core damage due to an earthquake (1 in 10,000 per year) and also the nuclear reactor with the highest population nearby. Given a 30 km exclusion zone at least 1.187 million people would be impacted.

Another potential problem was Trojan nuclear reactor. It was the largest nuclear reactor in the United States when it opened, had major public opposition from the start, and suffered from poor construction quality. Oh, and it was built on top of a fault line as well. If it were to have suffered a meltdown in the 1970s shortly after being commissioned it could have totally changed the history of nuclear power in the United States and probably around the world as well.
 
OK, what about a tsunami due to an island rockslide? I recall a documentary suggesting there's an island in the Atlantic, & if its side let go, it'd wipe out the Eastern Seaboard.:eek: (No volcano required...) Or is that LaPalma?:eek:

Or consider this: St Helens goes, New Madrid goes, & a 1969-scale hurricane hits both Florida & Texas, all the same year. ASB? Maybe...but not impossible.:eek::eek::eek:
Torqumada said:
A CLNG carrier, transiting Boston harbor to offload
:eek::eek: I'll call & raise you: same VLCC CNG carrier, off New Jersey.:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: It takes out the fuel oil storage tanks & chemical plants, & sends a poisonous plume all the way to DC (or Philadelphia).:eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
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A category 5 hurricane makes landfall at downtown Miami, followed by it's re-strengthening over the Gulf and an even more repercussive landfall in Houston. I'm pretty sure that's more likely than a major hurricane (category 3 or higher (essentially, Sandy in late August)) hitting the northeast corridor.

A huge F5 tornado striking Downtown Dallas.

A Cascadia megathrust earthquake: especially devastating, because the building codes in the Pacific NW aren't nearly as stringent as California's.
 
:eek::eek: I'll call & raise you: same VLCC CNG carrier, off New Jersey.:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: It takes out the fuel oil storage tanks & chemical plants, & sends a poisonous plume all the way to DC (or Philadelphia).:eek::eek::eek::eek:

Do you have the locations of all oil-chemical facilities in New Jersey? Because a horrifying idea struck me... :eek:

Marc A
 

FDW

Banned
On the Pacific Northwest, #1 would be a megathrust earthquake off the coastline, followed closely by the eruption of Mount Rainier. The former would produce a magnitude 9 earthquake that would devastate everything west of the Cascades, and an accompanying tsunami that, while it wouldn't do much immediate damage to the region, would flood coastal towns like Coos Bay and Astoria and likely do significant damage in Hawaii. A Rainier eruption, meanwhile, would wipe Tacoma, Washington off the map and cause major ash problems in Seattle and other nearby regions.

Actually, most of Tacoma would be fine in such an event, as the areas directly in the path of the Lahar that lie within city limits are mainly industrial zones. That's not to say such an event would be harmless, the Suburbs to the South and East of Tacoma (Puyallup, Fife, Sumner, Orting) would be mostly fucked, and much of the Green/Duwamish Basin (Auburn, Kent, Tukwila, and Seattle) would see significant flooding. It would knock out a fair sized industrial cluster and probably cut off Western Pierce County from the rest of the state.

For California, I'm gonna go against the conventional wisdom and not suggest an earthquake. The state is too well-prepared for an earthquake; NorCal had the experience of the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, while SoCal had Northridge in 1994. Instead, I'm gonna suggest a major flood in the Sacramento Valley. The entire region is only protected from flooding by a massive polder system; its failure would result in Stockton and Sacramento looking like the Netherlands in 1954. Take a look at this map (meant to simulate rising sea levels from melting glaciers, but just as applicable here) and see how far the water would reach into the Central Valley if the polders failed with just three feet of flooding.

Most of the areas flooded there aren't that heavily populated, but they also happen to be some of the state's most productive agricultural land as well, so chew on that.
 
Most of the areas flooded there aren't that heavily populated, but they also happen to be some of the state's most productive agricultural land as well, so chew on that.

I'm not sure what you consider "heavily populated" in San Francisco but trust me, Sacramento is not simply worried about losing farmland. When the valley flooded back in 1862, downtown Sacramento was very much under water (which was not exactly clean by the way) and it is believed that a bad enough breach of the levees could do the same today. Furthermore, many areas that were once rural are ever more suburban nowadays. A good example is Natomas, which is perhaps the most at-risk of all Sacramento area communities and is home to both farmland and housing developments.
 
Do you have the locations of all oil-chemical facilities in New Jersey? Because a horrifying idea struck me... :eek:
I don't, I just know there's a bunch of them at or near the shore.:eek::eek:

What did you have in mind?

While we're at it, how about this: the Southwest U.S. taps the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation, drinking water, & golf course maintenance,:rolleyes: like now, to the point the aquifer is drained dry--& you get subsidence from the Texas-New Mexico border to the southern border of South Dakota,:eek: as wide as the entire Texas Panhandle:eek::eek:--& most of Nebraska.:eek::eek::eek::eek: (Sound improbable? I've heard an apparently serious, but clearly completely ignorant, proposal to do precisely that....:eek::rolleyes:)
 
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