Comment Re:Preferable to Rarer, Larger Quakes (Score 1) 65
This is usually the response I get from folks who have been through big storms (and sometimes zero earthquakes). At least with earthquakes, it's been my experience that people who've been through one are much less anxious about them than those who haven't. I suspect the same can be said for big storms. The main difference that comes up between earthquakes and storms is the predictability or prior warning. While it is certainly true that you can see a storm coming, I would guess that earthquake prone areas have a much smaller damage cost average over time compared to storm prone areas (both in lives and dollars).
Given that lots of people live in earthquake and storm prone areas, I suspect the differences in impact between these types of disasters are largely psychological. Perhaps people from parts of the world where fatalities to such things are more common would have a different sense of which was 'worse'. In the developed world, preparation and building codes have relegated potential disaster choice to a largely financial decision.