Philadelphia, PA: Chapter 19 (California)

California Earthquakes

Philadelphia Rainstorms

Chapter 19 has a section on California natural hazards. California is a very beautiful place to live but there are three major natural hazards that everyone should be aware of which are: earthquakes, fire, and landslides. Moving to California from Philadelphia, I was not use to earthquakes. That was the only nature hazard out of the three that I have experience since living in California. My first earthquake experience was very scary. It was not a big earthquake but everything in my room moved. California is always waiting for the "big one" as stated in the book. The state averages about two hundred earthquakes a week. Most of them are small and only felt by seismographs. Earthquakes are so normal in California no one really react to them anymore. One thing that is different about California and Philadelphia is that CA is prepared and know what to do during an Earthquake. Philadelphia had its first earthquake in 2011. Many people did not know what to do because they were not prepared for an earthquake. Below is short YouTube clip of Philadelphia the day the earthquake occurred.

One thing that Philadelphia is use to having and not California are Rainstorms. Philadelphia gets very bad rainstorms. It does not really rain as much in California. I want to say the five years I have lived in Northridge it would rain maybe two weeks in one year only. In Philadelphia it rains almost every other day. When there are rainstorms in Philadelphia, the streets usually get flooded. It is one of the worse times to drive anywhere when it rains that hard. The winds are usually really strong and an umbrella does not save anyone from getting wet during a storm. The only way people can be safe during a rainstorm is to stay indoors. Even though California and Philadelphia have different hazards, they all can caused severe damage.