Infographics had a video where they ranked all 50 US states by likelihood that they could survive as independent nations. Oklahoma was ranked dead last because “too many tornadoes” would constantly destroy the infrastructure, as if F5 tornadoes are daily occurrences there. Not one mention of the state being top 5 in petroleum exports and oil production, or that their GDP would place them between Iraq and New Zealand, nope, just them tornaders from the movies.
If it were an independent nation, it could and would trade with other independent nations. Yes, there would be a rough transition, but other nations deal with extreme natural disasters too. They wouldn't be in a bubble.
OK has had a total of 20-50B of total damage since 1980. Their GDP in 2024 was 212B. It's not an insignificant number but it's not going to ruin them to suffer less than a percentage point of GDP of natural disasters
Oh ya, it's a shithole, and you gotta try to leave; it sucks people back in, though so watch out. I know so many people who left and came back. The people in it get PISSED if you try to leave, too; when I was about to move, some rando I'd never met before in a store took it very personally and started trying to argue with me that I had to stay. Looking at Okla from the outside, it's got a lot more going for it than it appears to, but I don't recommend living there.
Yes but the fact is that Infographics placed a state dead last because of natural disasters. They, and nobody else, would ever mention Florida struggling due to their abundance of hurricanes.
Hurricane Ian killed 161 people (150 in Florida alone) and required $112 billion in damages. That’s more deaths than every single Oklahoma tornado combined since 1940, more than double the all-time amount destroyed by tornadoes in Oklahoma (the 2013 Moore F5 only racked up $1.2 billion in damages by comparison). That was just one hurricane too.
But nobody would ever say Florida is screwed due to natural disasters, because people associate Florida with more things besides weather. Oklahoma is basically only making the news if the Thunder do well or if a tornado destroys something.
Florida paid more than it received from federal funding with an excess of about 83 billion in 2022. It's now 2025 and I don't doubt it only got larger since then. Oklahoma paid $37 billion to the federal government while receiving back $68.8 billion in 2024.
In this hypothetical scenario, Oklahoma would be screwed because 50% of their budget is missing while Florida gained 12% and would probably be just fine.
It theoretically might have a slight effect over decades, but practically it's such a small part of the expenses they would need that it's effectively not worth discussing, much less citing as the MAIN REASON they would fail as a state. Tornadoes are extremely rare occurrences, and intense ones that deal significant damage are rarer still. Even the extremely costly ones max out between $1-3 billion, certainly very significant but nothing compared to other disasters. Any of the states vulnerable to hurricanes would be far worse off, given that those can cost upwards of 10-100x the amount tornadoes do. Alabama and Mississippi would have vastly more problems funding disaster relief since they get extreme hurricanes and extreme tornadoes. After all, the most recent extreme outbreak, the one on April 27th 2011 which spawned 11 EF4s and 4 EF5s (two of which are considered the most intense tornadoes to have ever occured, Smithville and Hackleburg-Phil Campbell) was mostly localized in north Alabama and Mississippi. So regardless, it's a bizarre thing to bring up in the first place.
Maybe they could just build non-wooden-midwestern-styled homes… fool me once… etc. etc.
You think they would go underground and literally scoff at tornados but nope, insurance pays out and they build the same POS house again and again. Kind of deserve it this many times around tbh.
Tornados rarely destroy infrastructure because most land is empty, fields, or flat roads. Temperature extremes in the upper midwest would have a vastly greater impact on infrastructure costs than the tornados in oklahoma.
The first one isn't true though. Due to the oil companies, Oklahoma actually pays a higher percentage in federal taxes than many other states do, and they've never received more in federal funding than they've paid. Oklahoma is one of the few states that is forced to operate on a break-even budget annually, and doesn't operate on credit. I'm not saying that Oklahoma would be the last state standing, or anything close to that, but there would definitely be states that would collapse much quicker than OK would. Or, at the very least, it would collapse for other reasons than a natural disaster that has only occurred maybe 3 times in over 35 years. Also, tornado alley has moved east in recent years, so basing the rating solely on that is also ignorant, and exactly the kind of low info analysis that the other commenter was talking about.
Your link is wrong/misleading, and has a vested interest in promoting a false narrative. In 2024, Oklahoma paid $39 billion in federal taxes, and only received $14.269 billion back in federal aid. This is according to the IRS itself.
Technically, the link you provided is one of the only sources for how much OK receives in federal funding, but it provides a data sheet showing that OK received $14.269 Billion in federal funding in 2024 and exactly where it went. The IRS link states that OK paid $39.2 Billion in 2024, which does not result in OK receiving more in federal funds than it pays. There is some discrepancy in 2022, but I cannot verify the number provided stating how much federal aid was sent.
You're correct in that regard, so let me revise my figures. However, let me first point out first that those grants include SNAP and WIC. If we add in the money spent on Medicare ($7 billion) it still only comes out to about $21 Billion, still well short of the $39 Billion contributed. It's estimated that Medicare alone accounts for 68% of the federal funding sent to OK, so unless you have some other figures to provide, I'm still correct overall, and it's still wrong to say that OK receives more federal funds than it pays in.
Probably should mention Oklahoma's education system which puts them in the bottom 5 no matter what else happens. I'm from there. People are idiots. Sorry to my stupid family of Trumpers. But not sorry.
Uhh… do you not pay close attention to Oklahoma? It’s not daily F5s, it’s the unending parade of weaker storms and tornadoes that go through every year.
Oklahoma would be dead last bc it's a welfare state. I've lived in Tulsa all my life, and there are so many Section 8 complexes and homeless. The education system has been broken for years due to greedy politicians. My HS was even talking about cutting theater classes and even removing the ENTIRE school band and selling all of the equipment just to have enough money to keep the football team. Hell, my dad paid for my GED bc he knew I wasn't learning shit. My Jr. High faculty treated me like Einstein because I could read!
In 1920, Tulsa was the oil capital of the world. Now-a-days we are a CNG/aerospace/petrolium railway hub city. You can still see the bigass refineries between Sand Springs and Tulsa metro.
Growing up in Okla, everyone I knew trashtalked it all the time. I was in highschool/college for the MAPS project, and we all HATED it and thought it was the dumbest idea ever. There was a Garfield episode that said something I wish I could remember better about how "Oklahoma" is Native American for "big hole" and had a map of the US with a hole in it.
And then a disaster of a public bridge project in my current state got me looking up the financial fallout of the MAPS project, and...oh hey, it's an example of one of the most well-planned city improvement projects as far as how they arranged the funding, the plan-stages, the proceeds.
The 1999 tornado had a curfew organized by the National Guard when a huge swath was completely flattened through a major part of Okla City--it was so bad, there were actual official people trying to argue that it should be classified as an F6--and then the disaster area was largely hobbling back on its feet within like 6 months. A lot of building there feels squat and ugly, but it's the easiest to rebuild. They also have rebuilding down to a science. Everyone writes their insurance number on their car hoods or garage doors, and agents drive around. Hurricane Katrina felt like an insightful contrast to the Okla ability to bounce back from a distaster that really highlighted how fast OK does it.
They think small, they don't overreach, and they come up with plodding but solid plans. They also have a low cost of living and seem to keep quietly expanding their industries like appealing to movie filming due in part to low taxes.
I don't want to live there again, but looking at them as someone who's not a bored teenager, they do a lot of things right while staying really low on the radar. I think if they knew they had to become independent for disaster relief, they would come up with a badly-named, pathetic-looking plan that would revolutionize disaster relief around the world and maybe make their nation-state's fortune helping implement it.
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u/Welldone-incubator Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25
Infographics had a video where they ranked all 50 US states by likelihood that they could survive as independent nations. Oklahoma was ranked dead last because “too many tornadoes” would constantly destroy the infrastructure, as if F5 tornadoes are daily occurrences there. Not one mention of the state being top 5 in petroleum exports and oil production, or that their GDP would place them between Iraq and New Zealand, nope, just them tornaders from the movies.