Mary;

I was born and raised in Wichita and spent a lot of my youth in basements.

The difference is that tornados and hailstorms are immediate and short-term whereas a predicted major quake tends to be long term.

Buying a house in tornado alley is one thing. Buying a house where a quake is predicted to strike is quite another thing.

The credibility of the prediction is another factor. People will get on with their life if the prediction is "a 30% chance within 100 years" but not if its' "100% within 3 years".

Roger