After playing around with the types of visualization on Many Eyes from IBM, I ultimately decided that this scatter plot was most interesting, based on the data I had chosen to use from my database. I had taken the building or owner’s loss and consolidated it into a scale I devised, numbering from 0-10; I then did the same with the occupant’s loss and created a data set on Many Eyes.
I find it interesting how the two losses relate to each other in this visualization. They don’t often match up–some of the low occupant damages have high owner damages and vice versa. It seems like if a high damage in one (especially in owner) should correlate to a high damage in the other, but this is seldom actually the case. I think this is an intriguing question and I look forward to seeing what else the sources and data can show us.
Owner Loss vs Occupant Loss, St Louis Fire Reports, 1879