United States of Disasters
One month ago my house was partially destroyed by a wind storm . Or perhaps it was a tornado. I've been displaced and living with my brother since. I've not been able to see my girlfriend due to the COVID-19 epidemic. It sure feels like the end of the world. So I decided to test my suspicions that disasters seem to be happening more frequently of late. Using Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data regarding Disaster Declarations for States and Counties I started looking at the Upper Cumberland Region as a way to focus my analysis. The Upper Cumberland's worst years previously for disasters were 2003 and 2005 where there were a total of 17 declared disasters in the region. At the time I calculated it, we were exactly 114 days into 2020 and we had already declared 32 disasters. In less than a third of the time, we had declared nearly double the disasters. So I calculated the frequency to determine that we were in fact experiencing disasters at a rate 5.