Storrs, Connecticut: The Safest Place To Live in the U.S.!

Record-setting floods, mudslides, earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes are other types of natural disasters that can and often do afflict the nation.

Is there any refuge from Mother Nature's wrath? Where is the least likely place in the country to live to avoid natural disasters? A study published in 2005 by the online news site slate.com to determine the safest town in America has re-surfaced. Its conclusion? Storrs, Connecticut!

Part of the Slate study examined the number of presidential declarations of disasters in the previous 50 years. The top 30 states that are most prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, sink holes, mudslides, forest fires, blizzards, icy conditions, and lethal heat waves were quickly eliminated. I am talking about states such as hurricane-prone Florida, Texas, Louisiana, the Carolinas, etc. Though Connecticut has been struck by at least 10 hurricanes since 1900, their ferocity pales in comparison to those other states.

All the states in "Tornado Alley" can quickly be eliminated, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, etc. Connecticut is ranked 43rd in tornado frequency in the nation — pretty low. Additionally, most of the tornadoes occur in Litchfield and Hartford counties. There has never been a known tornado fatality in either Middlesex or New London counties! Places such as Texas and Oklahoma can have more tornadoes in one year than Connecticut has had in its entire history.

Earthquake-prone states such as California and Alaska can quickly be eliminated. Connecticut rarely has earthquakes, and they tend to be very mild. A state such as Hawaii, which can have tsunamis and volcano eruptions, can also be quickly eliminated. The Connecticut coast can get the occasional rogue wave and a storm surge from a hurricane can be very damaging, but inland Storrs is not prone to this type of natural disaster, nor is any city or town in Connecticut near a volcano.

Though there can be occasional brush fires in Connecticut, it is not subject to the enormous wildfires seen out West and in the Southwest. We can and do get heat waves, but once again, they are seldom fatal to people in Connecticut.

One effective way to measure safety from natural disasters is to take the total known number of fatalities from disasters and divide it into the population to arrive at a deaths per thousand figure. The study found that only three states had a death per thousands rate lower than 0.01 per thousand: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Connecticut's rate turns out to be 0.00587 per thousand — the highest of the top three; however, a county by county breakdown for each state shows that Tolland County, Storrs in particular, is "America's Best Place To Avoid Death Due To Natural Disaster."

Storrs is 50 miles from the ocean and has no major rivers nearby to flood it; additionally, it never gets hit by a tornado or earthquake. Furthermore, though it has been hit by the occasional hurricane, its distance inland tends to weaken the force of the winds.

Named for Charles and Augustus Storrs, two brothers who donated 170 acres of land and $5,000 in 1871 to start the Storrs Agricultural College that later became UConn, Storrs, CT, occupies a little over 5 square miles and is dominated by the presence of UConn.

So if all of the news in recent years about extreme weather and deaths from natural disasters has gotten you down, rest assured that a refuge is not far away. Storrs, CT, home of our beloved Huskies, is one of the safest places in the country to live.

Click on this link to read about the entire Slate study. 

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