A surprising percentage of your neighbors fear tornadoes

I hate to tell you this, but you probably know someone who is irrational.

You may already know that, based on your acquaintances' views on politics or sports or pizza toppings or whether Milli Vanilli should have been forced to return their Grammy award (after all, the award goes to the musicians, not the lip-syncing guys). But now you know for sure.

According to a survey by the good folks at Yougov, 6% of Californians think tornadoes are a "major problem" where they live.

Yes. Roughly one out of 15 Californians live in fear of tornadoes. Of course, that's not the main natural disaster we fear. That is earthquakes. According to the survey, 32% of us consider earthquakes a major problem– which seems a bit low to me, since 70% of California's population lives within 30 miles of an earthquake fault.

I mean, I'm not afraid of earthquakes. I'm not afraid of anything other than the clothes in my closet when they seem to take human form after we turn out the lights. (Two major fears of my childhood: That Charles Manson would escape from prison, come to my Humboldt County home and kill me; and that I would inexplicably go down the drain of the bathtub. By the time I was in my 40s, I had conquered those fears.)

But to repeat. One-fifth as many Californians fear tornadoes as earthquakes. Despite there being zero recorded deaths due to tornadoes in California's history.

That begs the question: Why?

Part of it may be some anxiety that we Californians embrace. After all, only 3% of Oregonians, Nevadans and Arizonans consider tornadoes a major problem and only 2% of Washingtonians consider tornadoes a major problem. (And yes, I was anxious about how to spell all those words.) We're twice as anxious about tornadoes as residents in our neighboring states.

The concern may come because so many Californians moved here with a baked-in concern from their home state. Maybe a decent chunk of that 6% includes people from Kansas or Nebraska or Oklahoma (all part of "Hurricane Alley," which constituted the former Big Eight Conference). 

There's also the possibility that movies ("Twister," "Twisters," "The Wizard of Oz") have given us a sense that tornadoes can crop up anywhere. In rural Kansas. In urban Oklahoma. In Vacaville. In Cordelia.

But 6% of Californians consider tornadoes a major problem. Also, 8% consider hurricanes a major problem (also unlikely, but more possible) and 32% consider earthquakes a major problem. Significantly, 63% of us say none of the above, which makes it clear that there is a lot of overlap in fears. The same people who fear hurricanes and tornadoes likely also fear earthquakes.

The good news is that most things we fear never happen. The economy hasn't collapsed. Steph Curry hasn't reinjured his ankle in a long time. That clicking sound in your car engine went away. 

So a fear of tornadoes is not, in the current pseudo-spiritual language, likely to manifest tornadoes.

How do I know? I never went down the drain and Manson never came for me. As far as I know. Although maybe he was coming for me but was swept up in the great Southern Humboldt County tornado of 1973.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.