Compare those numbers to almost any other shore state.
State Number of disaster declared
1 Texas 81
2 California 73
3 Florida 59
4 New York 56
5 Oklahoma 53
6 Louisiana 53
7 Alabama 46
8 Kentucky 45
9 Ohio 43
10 Illinois 43
11 Pennsylvania 42
12 Mississippi 42
13 Arkansas 41
14 West Virginia 40
15 Washington 40
16 Missouri 40
17 Minnesota 40
18 Virginia 39
19 Tennessee 38
20 Iowa 37
21 North Dakota 36
22 Kansas 36
23 North Carolina 35
24 Nebraska 35
25 Indiana 32
26 Wisconsin 31
27 Maine 31
28 Georgia 31
29 Alaska 31
30 South Dakota 27
31 Vermont 24
32 Oregon 24
33 New Jersey 24
I don't really want to go into a big debate. Let me sum it up by saying that all things considered, NJ doesn't really deserve the level of bashing it receives. It's not the ideal place to live, but it's far from the worst.
Another tidbit, Central NJ has one of the lowest occurances of dangerous wildlife in the whole country. We have no poisonous snakes, very few spiders, no scorpions, etc. We do get the occassional shark attack. It's actually funny that my wife is terrified of snakes and she has no idea how much of a non issue it is when I run a northern brown over with the lawnmower.
Man, I've been living in Texas for 2 months and I hate it here... can't leave til Mar 08 though 
