Perils

A winter storm is a combination of heavy snow, blowing snow, and/or dangerous wind chills and can be life-threatening. In North America, winter storms typically form when an air mass of cold, dry Canadian air moves south and interacts with a warm, moist air mass moving north from the Gulf of Mexico.

Use our lookup tools to determine your risk, prepare your family, check your home strength, learn about your building code, and identify ways to strengthen your home against winter storms.

Each year, thousands of acres of wildland and many homes are destroyed by fires that can erupt at any time of the year. Wildfires spread quickly, igniting brush, trees, and homes.

Use our lookup tools to determine your risk, prepare your family, check your home strength, learn about your building code, and identify ways to strengthen your home against wildfires.

A tsunami is a massive volume of moving seawater. The most frequent cause of a tsunami is the buckling of the seafloor caused by an underwater earthquake. According to NOAA, since the beginning of the 19th century, tsunamis have caused more than 700 deaths and approximately $2 billion in damage to U.S. coastal states and territories.

Use our lookup tool to determine your risk, prepare your family, and identify ways to strengthen your home against tsunamis.

Tornadoes aren’t like hurricanes that are born over open waters and can take days to reach land. They are the most sudden, unpredictable, and violent storms on Earth.

Use our lookup tools to determine your risk, prepare your family, check your home strength, learn about your building code, and identify ways to strengthen your home against tornadoes.

Lightning is one of the most dangerous and commonly encountered weather hazards that people experience each year. It occurs due to a discharge of atmospheric electricity, either between clouds or from a cloud to the ground. Lightning can travel at speeds of up to 90,000 miles per second, and a single lightning bolt can generate heat exceeding 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit—five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

Use our lookup tool to determine your risk, prepare your family, and identify ways to strengthen your home against lightning.

Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 every year. Hurricanes can bring severe winds, heavy rainfall, storm surge, coastal and inland flooding, rip currents, tornadoes, and even landslides.

Use our lookup tools to determine your risk, prepare your family, check your home strength, learn about your building code, and identify ways to strengthen your home against hurricanes.

Hail can be dangerous and cause costly damage to your home, especially the roof, siding, and windows.

Learn how to stay safe in a hailstorm using the information on this page, identify your risk, understand your options, and protect your home against hail.

Devastating floods occur throughout the U.S. every year. Ninety percent of all presidentially declared natural disasters involve flooding.

There are different types of flooding: river, coastal, storm surge, and inland. All can cause death, injury, and property destruction.

Use our lookup tools to determine your risk, prepare your family, check your home strength, learn about your building code, and identify ways to strengthen your home against flooding.

Generally, extreme heat is defined as temperatures that hover 10 degrees or more above the average high temperature for the region that last for prolonged periods of time and are accompanied by high humidity that the body cannot tolerate.

Use our lookup tool to determine your risk, prepare your family, and identify ways to strengthen your home against extreme heat.

An earthquake can last for seconds or minutes with multiple aftershocks. Earthquakes can cause buildings and bridges to collapse — and trigger avalanches, flash floods, fires, landslides, or tsunamis.

Use our lookup tools to determine your risk, prepare your family, check your home strength, learn about your building code, and identify ways to strengthen your home against earthquakes.