A recent pronouncement that Florida is the scariest of all 50 states leaves us conflicted. I mean, hey, we’re number one at something! But looking closely at the criteria used, you can’t help but find the competition rigged.
Realtors awarded this distinction, based on 15 things that incite fear, and placed Florida first in three categories: hurricanes, tornados, and shark attacks.
Here at the real estate search site Estately we know there are hundreds of worries when choosing where to buy a home, so to help house hunters make a more informed decision we’ve mapped out where Americans’ darkest fears are most readily found.
But do realtors know their natural disasters? If they did, they’d give Missouri the first place ranking for tornados. Joplin, anyone? Instead, Missouri was given first place in meth labs, an enterprise usually associated with Alaska, or since Breaking Bad, New Mexico.
Earthquakes didn’t make the list. If they had, Oklahoma, which thanks to fracking recently surpassed California in temblors, would excel. Mud slides, another California specialty, were also not even counted. The nearest California got to a category header was number two — for spiders. And number six for dentists.
On the other hand, Florida can legitimately claim the top spot for lightening strikes. According to weather.com, there are 24.7 strikes per square mile in the Sunshine State, leaving the closest competitor, Louisiana with 19.7 strikes, a distant second. The realtors ranked Massa-freaking-chusetts first and it’s not even in weather.com’s top five.
Florida is so lightening prone that when a Reddit user posted Game of Thrones sigils of all 50 states, he used a bolt as our state symbol.
Also conveniently left out were blizzards (Washington), open-carry demonstrations (Texas), and white supremacy militias (Idaho).
Here’s the chart, showing all 15 categories and how each state ranked. Was your state accurately portrayed?
