Federal disaster area

A disaster area is a region or a locale, heavily damaged by either natural, technological or social hazards. Disaster areas affect the population living in the community by dramatic increase in expense, loss of energy, food and services; and finally increase the risk of disease for citizens. An area that has been struck with a natural, technological or sociological hazard that opens the affected area for national or international aid.

A natural hazard is a negative process of phenomena created naturally (tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes) that will affect people or the environment.

Tornadoes are narrow aggressively rotating mixtures of air that come from the base of a thunderstorm, being the most violent of storms. Tornadoes are usually hard to see unless they form a condensation funnel made from dust, water droplets and debris. Tornadoes take place in several parts of the world, such as Australia, Europe, Africa but mostly occur in the United States, Argentina, and Bangladesh.

Hurricanes, cyclones, tropical storms and typhoons can be referred to as the same. They combine low pressure and strong winds that rotate counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Tropical cyclones have a low pressure center, rain and strong winds. They usually initiate over tropical or subtropical waters. Hurricanes can be predicted several days before they hit and can be very destructive and destroy homes and some other buildings. Cyclones, although they are the same type of storm, are harder to predict before a few days like hurricanes thus giving people only a few hours of notice to evacuate their homes. In this case there are far more deaths from flooding and high tides. A recent (2012) example of a hurricane is Hurricane Sandy, which was the most devastating storm in decades hitting the United States, leaving millions without power and a Brady homeless.

Floods take place when water overflows or submerges land that is usually parched. The most common way is when rivers or streams overflow their banks. A floodplain is produced when water from a rivers spreads through the land from excessive rain, rapid ice melting, unfortunately placed beaver dam, and ruptured dam. There are two types of floods: general and flash floods. General floods are predicted well in advance and usually cause the destruction of housing, people and crops. Flash floods come without warning and are sudden and extreme: A large volume of water flows rapidly and people have to make quick movements if they do not want to be caught in the flood. They have to find high safe ground where the water will not reach them.

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Wikipedia