The region is rife with potential natural hazards, says Rob Harper, spokesman for the Emergency Management Division of the state of Washington's Military Department. Among them are the tsunamis, earthquakes and volcano activities. Mud flows could come sliding down Mt. Rainer. A fault that lies 300 miles of the coast could create a huge swell of water.

"In that scenario, they have about 15 to 20 minutes to evacuate," Harper says. "And we can't forget Mount St. Helens as a volcano threat.”

Grim scenarios indeed. Then again, the last tsunami recorded was in 1700, Harper says. The last major mud flows happened thousands of years ago, he adds. In contrast, Florida experienced four major hurricanes back-to-back in the summer of 2004 alone.

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Such dramatic and damaging weather events are a major reason why the bottom of our list — the least safe places to live — is dominated by coastal and southern cities. Monroe, La., was ranked the least safe on our list, with frequent wind and hail. And, according to scientists, increased global warming will only lead to more hurricanes per year, resulting in greater loss of life and property. Dallas has lots of wind and hail and is prone to some tornadoes. (In fact, Texas has the highest homeowners insurance rates in the U.S.) Jackson, Miss., gets hit by twisters and West Palm Beach-Boca Radon, Fla. gets smacked regularly with hurricanes.

Sperling’s Best Places collected climate, hail, tornado and wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; earthquake data from the U.S. Geological Survey; hurricane data from the International Hurricane Research Center; and compiled brush fire information independently. It then indexed all those numbers to show a metro area’s relative tendency to experience disasters or extreme weather (abundant rain or snowfall or days that are below freezing or above 90 degrees Fahrenheit). The numbers shown for natural disasters are out of 100 — the higher the number, the more common such events are. The lower the number, the less common. Sperling's did not include rare events such as tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

We then added up the numbers to determine how relatively safe each place is. We didn't give any one type of disaster more weight than another — although tornadoes and earthquakes can result in extensive damage, so can hail and rain. In fact, water has the potential to be the most destructive force of all.

"The most potentially damaging natural disaster is flooding," says Caroline Gorman, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry research group based in New York City. "That's why the private insurance market doesn't even try to sell it. It happens in every state, it happens all the time. There are so many different ways for water to do damage."

Live in an unsafe place and plan to stay? There are things you can do to make your house less susceptible to damage and destruction.

The Institute for Business & Home Safety has a program called Fortified for Safer Living, which helps homeowners and builders incorporate materials and technologies into new homes that will allow the buildings to withstand severe weather like hurricanes and earthquakes. For example, there are ways to connect a roof to walls and walls to the foundation so that the stress of, say, hurricane wind, would be distributed throughout the structure instead of just affecting one wall. The strategies can make a home fire-, tornado- or earthquake-resistant. The organization has a ZIP code locator that will tell you what kinds of things can help your home.

"It's just like you would choose the safety features on your vehicle," Rose says. "You should also choose them for your home."

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