BOOK SAYS WE LIVE IN THE RISKIEST PLACE; CALIFORNIA TOPS DISASTER LIST COMPILED BY N.Y. PROFESSOR : TOP TEN.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

Earthquakes. Floods. Fires. Freeway snipers.

They're enough to make you shudder - and put California on top of the 10 riskiest places in the United States, according to Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse University geography professor.

``I don't suppose I'll be terribly popular (in California),'' said Monmonier, who attributes California's No. 1 ranking to its landslides, droughts, riots and oil spills.

Not so, say city boosters who describe Los Angeles as the ``fun and sun capital'' of the world.

``When it's winter in Syracuse, we'll take Los Angeles any day of the week,'' said Jason Greenwald, press deputy to Mayor Richard Riordan. ``Los Angeles is a great place to live.''

The Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau also took exception to the professor's list, culled from his newest book, ``Cartographies of Danger: Mapping Hazards of America.''

``Los Angeles is a fascinating and wonderful place but once again naysayers have decided to place it atop their list,'' said convention spokeswoman Carol Martinez. ``What does it mean? Not much.''

Among the cities that made Monmonier's list was Seattle, ranked second because it's located 70 miles from Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak, two active volcanoes. Alaska and Hawaii also made the list because they're magnets for tsunamis - seismic sea waves.

And don't think about living in Miami: Hurricanes and high crime made it the fifth-riskiest place in America.

``I hope to demonstrate how a geographer thinks about hazards,'' Monmonier said. ``Not just natural hazards like earthquakes and floods but man-made hazards like chemical accidents and nuclear waste and social ills like crime and disease.''

In his book, Monmonier uses flood plain, earthquake, air pollution and even nuclear power maps to illustrate how errors in judgment can affect the creation of hazard maps.

While books like Monmonier's capture the public's fascination and fear of natural disasters, risk assessment experts say chances of getting hurt in a car crash are far greater than being smothered by a volcano, jolted in a quake, flooded out in heavy rains or burned by a fire.

``Statistically speaking, you're more at risk on the road or at home,'' said Michael Taylor, a spokesman for the National Safety Council, a nonprofit organization in Itasca, Ill.

According to the safety council, 115 people die each day in car crashes compared to tornadoes, which kill 89 people a year, and lightning, which fatally strikes about 90 people a year.

Earthquakes kill even fewer people, said California Institute of Technology seismologist Lucile Jones.

``The risk of dying in an earthquake is comparable to dying in a meteor strike,'' she said. ``Earthquakes by themselves are not a particularly serious hazard.''

In fact, quakes are more a financial hazard than a safety hazard, she said.

The 1994 Northridge Earthquake, for example, killed 61 people and cost $25.3 billion, the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

Despite the low number of quake-related fatalities, California has earned an unfair reputation for disasters and mayhem.

``California gets this bad rap because we have such a variety of disasters,'' said Jim Goltz, a senior policy analyst at EQE International, an engineering consulting firm in Irvine. ``In the Midwest, you have floods and possibly tornadoes. In one decade, we had floods, fires, earthquakes and urban riots.''

But he adds, there are advantages to living on the edge.

``I have yet to shovel my first load of snow from my driveway,'' the Columbus, Ohio, transplant said.

Some prefer to brag about California's disasters.

``It's a state with a lot of disasters and it's a good place to be in times of disaster,'' said Fred Messick, spokesman for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. ``We're leaders of the United States in responding to and recovering from disasters.''

So is there a safe place to live?

Monmonier claims he lives in one now.

``I'm not on a flood plain. I'm not in an earthquake zone. I'm not where tornadoes are a problem,'' Monmonier said from his office in Syracuse.

With all that snow and low winter temperatures?

``We can sort of cope with (winters),'' Monmonier explains. There are plenty of plows and people who do emergency planning take the climate into consideration.

But even winter can be a problem, he admits, ``for people who have heart trouble and decide to shovel the driveway.''

?13The Associated Press

Map expert Mark Monmonier of Syracuse University has charted hazards across America in his book, ``Cartographies of Danger: Mapping Hazards of America.'' In compiling the volume Monmonier developed a list of 10 risky places:

1. Almost any place in California: Earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, volcanoes, giant sea waves, smog, freeway snipers, oil spills and future water shortages.

2. Seattle: Located only 70 miles from Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak, considered active volcanoes. Also subject to, but not prepared for, earthquakes.

3. Coastal Alaska and Hawaii: Subject to great sea waves, called tsunamis.

4. North Carolina's Outer Banks: Hurricanes, compounded by barrier island areas difficult to evacuate.

5. Miami: Hurricanes, high crime rate.

6. Louisiana coast: Hurricanes, air and water pollution from chemical industries.

7. Flood plains of the Mississippi and other major rivers: Floods like those of 1993 in the Upper Midwest.

8. Flood plains on smaller waterways: Flash floods kill hundreds of unsuspecting people every year.

9. Growing Southern cities: Warm weather all year favors housebreakers and other criminals; many young males, often unemployed, flock to these cities.

10. The neighborhood of a nuclear power plant: Major accidents are rare but have happened, and there is also the chance of terrorism.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Color) SACRAMENTO

(2--Color) SAN FRANCISCO

(3--Color) SANTA BARBARA

(4--Color) LOS ANGELES

(5--Color) No caption (Natural disaster)

Box: TOP TEN (See text)