10 Safest Cities from Natural Disasters

September is National Preparedness Month, which helps to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies. This year’s theme is “Take Control in 1,2,3,” focusing on preparing older adults for disasters, specifically those that live in areas impacted by all-hazard events.

As a way to mark National Preparedness Month, Gutter Gnome recently looked at what U.S. cities are the safest from natural disasters. According to FEMA, “a natural disaster is the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community.” Its National Risk Index features 18 natural hazards including wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.

Gutter Gnome compared the 500 biggest U.S. cities across five categories—hazards risk, vulnerable populations, vulnerable infrastructure, response and recovery, and moblity. Each category contained relevant factors including population density, share of population aged 65+ living alone, share of mobile homes, fire stations per square mile and number of airports. The factors received weights based on importance, scores were calculated for each city to determine its overall rank, as well as each factor and category.

Click through the gallery above to see the top 10 Safest Cities from Natural Disasters.