SANTA ANA – Orange County officials are disputing a new Time magazine study that ranks the county as the second-most dangerous place in the U.S. for natural disasters.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department emergency management coordinators contend Time’s methodology for the study in the magazine’s Answers issue that hit newsstands Friday is flawed, Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock said.

“In short, Orange County is not more dangerous than its neighboring counties,” Hallock said based on the emergency coordinators’ analysis of the Time report.

The Sheriff’s department’s emergency management division plans to contact Time officials to discuss the methodology of the study, Hallock said.

Time officials declined Friday to comment on the Sheriff’s department’s assertion on the validity of the study, said Kerri Chyka, a spokeswoman for the magazine.

Time said in a statement its rankings were calculated using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, some dating back 64 years, that tracks 44 different damage-causing natural phenomena. The magazine created a disaster index based on the average of each county’s events, as well as the events of neighboring counties. A low disaster index means fewer events like dangerous storms, hurricanes and earthquakes.

Ocean County, N.J., with a disaster index of 223.7, ranked as the most dangerous place in the U.S. while Orange County at 180.8 placed second. Los Angeles County ranked fifth, San Diego County placed eighth, Riverside County came in at 10th, and San Bernardino County is 11th.

“Counties that have very few of any of the 44 events tracked by NOAA are likely to be safest in the land, while many of those that have seen hundreds of incidents over the years are in places like hurricane-damaged New Jersey and earthquake-prone California,” the Time study states.

The most recent significant earthquake in Orange County occurred in March, when a magnitude-5.1 temblor struck near La Habra. In addition, a magnitude-5.0 earthquake was centered in Newport Beach in April 1989, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Orange County emergency management coordinators believe the Time ranking system for natural disaster danger doesn’t present an accurate picture.

“This process of increasing Orange County’s risk based upon its neighbors is fundamentally flawed,” Hallock said. “For example, a disaster affecting Blythe in Riverside County, or Calabasas in Los Angeles County, or El Centro in San Diego County, will very likely never affect Orange County. It would have to be a catastrophic event affecting all of Southern California.”

The Time study does not account for dollar amounts of property damage in determining rankings and fails to weight major or severe incidents with small, less-severe incidents, Hallock said.

“For example, a recorded rip current with one injury on Sept. 16, 2001 has the same value as the Freeway Complex Fire in 2008, which caused $150 million in damage, according to their database,” he said.

The Freeway Complex Fire scorched a path through Yorba Linda, Anaheim and Chino Hills State Park. It took four days to contain the blaze that destroyed 187 homes.

Mike Petro, battalion chief for the Orange County Fire Authority, said the natural disaster rankings in the Time study require additional review.

“The OCFA would need more time to see how the data was collected and how they drew their conclusions,” he said.

Orange County and the rest of Southern California is not without risk of natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires and floods, Hallock said. As a result, the OCSD’s Emergency Management Division has developed a comprehensive plan that includes coordination with various agencies, public education, mitigation and training, he said.

The OCFA also has a detailed plan for addressing wildfires and trains extensively for a variety of natural disasters, Petro said.

“When you look at our capabilities, depth of personnel and resources we are extremely prepared,” he said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@ocregister.com Twitter: @thechalkoutline