You live where?

Continuation of rant, see below:

Oh, and, by the way, I live in Portland, Oregon. My city is smack in the middle of 3 or 4 fault lines and is very prone to earthquakes. We have them all the time, and every once in a while we have one that we can feel and we get shaken around and stuff falls off the walls. So far, we've been lucky and THE BIG ONE hasn't hit. But it will. We know that. All the evidence points to a Big One happening every few hundred years or so and we're overdue. And, we're so stupid we continue to live here. How can anyone live here?

We have several volcanos on 2 sides of our city - to the north and to the east of us. Active volcanos. One volcano to the north of us erupted very recently and is still spewing ash and steam on a daily basis and is building lava domes as I write this. LAVA DOMES! STEAM AND ASH! PEOPLE DIED! I can look out my window some days and SEE STEAM AND ASH ERUPTING FROM THE VOLCANO! From my WINDOW! And, yet I continue to live here. One volcano to the east of us has recently started bulging - it's active and is growing full with magma and could erupt! We have an old volcano right in the middle of town. Not two miles from my house. It's called Mt. Tabor (get it? "Mount" Tabor - it's a volcano!) And we have concerts and picnics and parties in the crater. OF A VOLCANO. Don't Portlanders know that even dormant volcanos can become active and YOU CAN DIE?

We live at the confluence of TWO MAJOR RIVERS. Don't we know they can flood? AND PEOPLE CAN DIE? It's happened in the past! Haven't we learned anything? Not even 60 years ago the Columbia River broke through the levees that had been constructed to separate north Portland's area from the river - it BROKE THROUGH. And an entire community called Vanport was DECIMATED and disappeared forever. Doesn't anyone remember? Why don't we all move away? Why do we live in such a "dangerous" place?

These and other opinions will be shared by the collective media and ignorant non-Oregonians IF the big one hits, IF another major volcanic eruption occurs or IF the rivers get enough rainfall to flood. We're just like New Orleans! Natural disasters can happen here too!

We're not stupid. We're not ignorant. We know the limitations and the frailities of the place we live. And we continue to live here because it's home. Just like the people of New Orleans and the whole Gulf Coast. Somebody needs to clue me in to the special area in the world that is safe from volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, flooding, tornados, broken dams and levees, killer heat, snowstorms and blizzards and all other natural activities that can kill. Personally, I don't know where that place is. The media must know, because they like to say stuff like "they should have known that would happen. Why were they living there? tsk tsk."