Roman Around

I thought it was some sort of joke, but it isn’t. There actually is such a thing as a “death map,” and it has nothing to do with comic books, motion pictures or the Electoral College results of the 2008 Presidential Election.

It was created by a team of researchers at the University of South Carolina hoping “to dispel some myths about what the biggest threats to life and limb are.”

Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor with Reuters, writes:

Heat is more likely to kill an American than an earthquake, and thunderstorms kill more people than hurricanes do, according to a U.S. “death map” published on Tuesday.

Researchers who compiled the county-by-county look at what natural disasters kill Americans said they hope their study will help emergency preparedness officials plan better.

Heat and drought caused 19.6 percent of total deaths from natural hazards, with summer thunderstorms causing 18.8 percent and winter weather causing 18.1 percent, the team at the University of South Carolina found.

Earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes combined were responsible for fewer than 5 percent of all hazard deaths.

According to the findings, published in BioMed Central’s International Journal of Health Geographics, much of the South and the Great Plains are among the most dangerous areas to live in the United States. The South is not only a heat risk but is a hurricane risk. The Great Plains are hotbeds of turbulent weather, like tornados.

The South Central United States also gets a dangerous nod.

California, by contrast, is pretty safe.

“What is noteworthy here is that over time, highly destructive, highly publicized, often-catastrophic singular events such as hurricanes and earthquakes are responsible for relatively few deaths when compared to the more frequent, less catastrophic such as heat waves and severe weather,” they wrote.

… or anything involving Dan Abrams.

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