North Texas cities ranked highest for natural disaster risk in a new study.
The study conducted by WalletHub compared over 180 cities across the country on different measures of safety, including community safety, financial safety, and natural disaster risk.
Each city was assessed on how well it is prepared for natural dangers, including earthquakes, floods, hail, hurricanes, tornados, and wildfires.
A majority of the cities at the highest risk for natural disasters fall across North Texas.
Houston has the highest risk in the country, followed closely by Arlington. Colorado Springs comes after Arlington, followed by Grand Prairie, Irving, and then Fort Worth.
Garland ranked as the tenth highest risk for natural disasters, Dallas as eleventh, and Plano as twelfth.
The next closest Texas city is San Antonio, which ranked 21st. Amarillo ranked 29th, and Austin ranked 41st.
While cities from Florida, North Carolina, and California were peppered in with the mix, Texas cities’ extreme heat contributes to its high risk for wildfires.
North Texas cities are also prone to hail, tornados, and severe storms, as many saw when a string of severe weather ravaged North Texas earlier this summer, leaving thousands without power and causing considerable property damage, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Outside of its natural disaster risk, Texas cities were scattered about the rankings for the safest city overall.
The safest Texan city is Laredo, ranking 21st, followed by Brownsville at 30th.
Irving ranked as the 79th safest city in the country, Plano as the 91st, Arlington as the 100th, Fort Worth at 121st and Dallas ranked 166th.
The only city in Texas that ranked more dangerous than Dallas was Houston, which placed as the 12th most dangerous city in the country.
The three safest cities in the country, according to the report, are South Burlington, Vermont; Casper, Wyoming; and Warwick, Rhode Island.