3 ms·

Earthquake along the New Madrid fault. Almost nothing in the midwest is built with earth quakes in mind.

• btilly 16y ago
  New York's construction is even more vulnerable, and there are a lot of fault lines there. Another very real possibility is that the Cascadia zone could have a megathrust earthquake. This would be a 9.0 hitting cities like Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver that are completely not prepared for it. The last one in 1700 gave Japan a really nice tsunami as well. That could also potentially trigger the lahar that is waiting on Mt Rainier. Which brings to mind all of the volcanos listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decade_Volcano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decade_Volcano - the eruption of any of which would qualify as low probability high impact event.