Wellhart has quickly been able to become a leader in disaster relief staffing because we understand that when disaster strikes, organizations need a lot of providers in a very short amount of time. Since our founding, Wellhart’s database of qualified healthcare providers has only seen rapid and continual growth. With access to over 500,000 assignment-ready candidates, our team is able to fill large-scale rapid deployment requests nationwide at lighting quick speeds.
Wellhart’s ability to fill immediate-need emergency response projects so efficiently can be attributed to our proactive approach in both recruiting and locum tenens licensing. Every day, each individual Wellhart recruiter works diligently to build relationships with physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other medical professionals across the country who are prepared to drop everything to work locum tenens assignments.
While our recruiters could simply work with the licenses their providers already have, a large part of both relationship building and emergency preparedness is expanding the list of states in which a provider is licensed to practice.
Unless a provider has the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC) or is able to obtain a temporary license, the process of obtaining medical licenses in different states for locum tenens jobs can vary greatly in the time and effort it takes to complete.
All state licensing boards are different, and new licenses can take anywhere from 90 days to over a year to obtain as some state medical boards require a great deal of thorough documentation from your medical school, and time consuming background checks in their license application process, while others may require less.
This is why Wellhart wastes no time in jumpstarting the licensure process; guiding our healthcare professionals through what their new locum license requires every step of the way. Our licensing team experts are responsible for not only the purchase of new licenses, but also for streamlining communication between medical boards, recruiters and their providers to make the licensure process as quick, easy, and painless as possible.
Emergency and disaster response assignments offer a greater sense of fulfillment for many of Wellhart’s locums, and as such, they are always excited to expand their list of licenses and broaden their horizons. Of course, disaster can strike anywhere at any time, but some states are more disaster prone than others.
Think about the states most known for their earthquakes, or which region is affected most by hurricane season; this is the trick Wellhart used to compile our list of the best state licenses to open up the most disaster relief locum opportunities!
5. New York
While New York may not be the first state that comes to mind when you think of regions affected most by natural disasters, it’s up there with the states that have experienced the most natural disasters since 1953, coming in at a grand total of 101.
The state has experienced a wide array of natural disasters throughout its history, including an earthquake, severe storms and blizzards, and hurricanes. In fact, New York is number 9 on the list of states hit most often by hurricanes, having experienced 15 hurricanes between 1851 and 2018, 3 of which were rated in severity between Category 3 through Category 5 storms.
The natural disasters most common to New York are floods, severe storms, wildfires, tropical storms, and blackouts, with severe storms and floods occurring the most often of these disasters according to FEMA.
4. Louisiana
When you think of Louisiana, you may imagine its crown jewel, New Orleans, with its lively jazz scene and extravagant mardi gras celebrations. However, you may also recollect images of the devastation this city and state experienced during Hurricane Katrina, which were plastered on every news station in 2005.
With a system of levees channeling and holding the waters of the MIssissippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and various canals, Louisiana is extremely vulnerable to hurricanes which bear the threat of extreme floods. In fact, Louisiana is the number one most vulnerable state to floods, with an astounding 50.56% of its land area within Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHA), more than any other U.S. state.
Louisiana is also fourth on the list of states that have been hit most often by hurricanes during hurricane seasons between the years of 1851 and 2018. Within this time period, the state has experienced 54 total hurricanes, 17 of which were rated between Category 3 through Category 5 in severity, the most recent of which being hurricane Ida, which was rated as a Category 4 storm.
3. Florida
Located between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean, Florida is most widely known for its vulnerability to hurricanes, most notably in recent history, Hurricane Irma of 2017, and Hurricane Michael of 2018, both of which were Category 5 storms.
Florida is the number 1 US state hit most by hurricanes, having been hit by a grand total of 120 of them between the years of 1851 and 2018. Due to its vulnerability to hurricanes, it is also the number 2 state in the country most prone to flooding, with 40.8% of its land area being within Special Flood Hazard Areas.
As if hurricanes and flooding weren’t enough, Florida has also been affected by 66 tornados between 1991 and 2010, coming in right behind Kansas, which has had 96.
2. California
Similarly to New York, California has also experienced numerous varied natural disasters throughout the years including floods, earthquakes, severe storms, and drought, combining to form a total of 336 major natural disasters having occurred since 1953.
With its seemingly never-ending dry season, large population, and abundance of forest area, It’s no secret that California is America’s number one victim of wildfires. California’s wildfires have gotten progressively worse in recent years due to climate change, with the two largest fires in the state’s history, the August Complex and the Dixie Fire, having only occurred in 2020 and 2021.
To make matters worse, California also has the highest number of housing units at high to extreme risk of wildfire damage, clocking in at 13,680,100 housing units, and 2,040,600 properties at risk. The state experienced a record fire season in 2020, with over 4 million acres of land burned across the state.
Based on the greatest earthquake magnitude that is reached once per year in a state on average, California also holds the number 2 spot for the U.S. states which experience the most earthquakes.
The state’s average earthquake magnitude that happens once per year lands at a 6.02, however, the state experiences thousands of earthquakes every year. Luckily, a great majority of these are so small in magnitude that they are not felt at all, but the state does still average 2 to 3 earthquakes large enough to cause damage to structures every year.
1. Texas
While experiencing a multitude of various natural disasters is not exclusive to the state of Texas, the state is unmatched in not only the sheer number of major disasters throughout its history, but it also comes out on top in the severity of these disasters.
While 2017’s Hurricane Harvey has been called the worst disaster in Texas’ history, the state has experienced a whopping total of 360 major disasters since 1953, having endured tornados, wildfires, droughts, floods, and ice storms like the 2021 Texas power outage in its recent history.
Though the Wizard of Oz was right about Kansas being one of the top states affected by tornados, Texas has Kansas wildly outnumbered, having experienced 155 tornados from 1991 to 2010, giving Texas the title of the top state most affected by tornados in the U.S.
Texas is also second only to California on the list of states most vulnerable to wildfires. Its worst year for insured wildfire losses was in 2011, having lost $530 million. While only 717,800 properties in Texas are at high risk for wildfire damage, almost 10 million housing units are at high to extreme risk as well, which, in the case of a severe wildfire, could result in the displacement of millions of families.
While here at Wellhart we hope not to see anymore major natural disasters take place in any state, we cannot ignore the statistics, and always ensure that we as an agency stay prepared for the worst at all times.
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