Defining the Need

Highest Risk Counties in Georgia

Table 1 shows an assessment of the top 25 risk counties in Georgia. The entire assessment of all 159 counties can be found in Appendix A.

The purpose of this ranking is to ensure that focus is maintained on the areas of the state with the highest risk. This does not mean that focus should be taken away from counties that do not have the highest risk-in truth, a disaster can happen anywhere at any time. But it does help prioritize for section leadership where to start new ARES groups, and where to plan for staging and deployment of ARES mutual assistance teams.

This assessment takes into account the four most significant (from the perspective of likelihood of occurrence, impact to the community and requirement for amateur radio resources) disaster threats: floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and winter storms. Each threat was assigned a number corresponding to low risk (1), medium risk (2), or high risk (3). The numbers were assigned on a county basis, based on several risk factors for the county with regards to the specific threat:

All counties were first assigned a low risk (1) for each threat.
The GEMA report indicating number of tornado events by county from 1950 - 2000 was used to establish a risk for tornado for each county-the numbers were assigned as follows: counties with 13 to 23 events were assigned a high risk (3); counties with 5 to 12 events were assigned a medium risk (2) and counties with 0 to 4 events were left at a low risk (1).
The risk was increased by .5 for counties that had received a presidential disaster declaration (according to GEMA ) for a tornado from 1990 - 2000.
The risk was increased to medium risk (2) for counties that had received a presidential disaster declaration for flood, hurricane or winter storm from 1990 - 2000 were The risk was increased from medium risk (2) to high risk (3) for the 6 coastal counties identified by GEMA as highest risk of storm surge in a hurricane for the two categories, Floods and Flash Floods, and Hurricane.
The risk for all four categories of threat were aggregated and averaged.
The list of counties was then sorted first by aggregated risk, then by the 2001 US Census estimate of county population.

County	2001 Population	ARES District	Average Risk	Aggregate Risk	Floods and Flash Floods	Hurricanes	Tornadoes	Winter Storms
Chatham	232,064	8	3	11	3	3	3.0	2
Glynn	68,217	8	3	11	3	3	3.0	2
Liberty	60,107	8	3	11	3	3	2.5	2
Fulton	816,638	3	2	10	2	2	3.5	2
Cobb	631,767	3	2	10	2	2	3.5	2
Carroll	91,956	1	2	10	2	2	3.5	2
Floyd	91,183	1	2	10	2	2	3.5	2
Bryan	24,552	8	2	10	3	3	1.5	2
Meriwether	22,625	4	2	10	2	2	3.5	2
Hall	145,664	2	2	9	1	2	3.5	2
Whitfield	85,248	1	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Bartow	80,026	1	2	9	1	2	3.5	2
Walker	61,884	1	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Spalding	59,066	5	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Gordon	45,555	1	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Camden	44,061	8	2	9	2	3	2.0	2
Colquitt	42,201	7	2	9	2	1	3.5	2
Polk	38,843	1	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Murray	37,747	1	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Habersham	37,153	2	2	9	1	2	3.5	2
Decatur	28,175	7	2	9	1	2	3.5	2
Upson	27,711	5	2	9	2	2	2.5	2
Haralson	26,255	1	2	9	2	2	3.0	2
Pickens	24,716	1	2	9	2	2	2.5	2

Table 1. Top 25 Risk Counties in Georgia