on the island? it's hard to say... I think the northeast region is the nicest, out past seixal and towards calheta in the higher altitude parts around there... most of the high altitude areas of this island are declared reserves, here in Sao Vicente, for example, there is basically no residences above about 500m above sea level

in the case of disaster, the north side is where you want to be because it is naturally high rainfall and a lot of water, whereas if there is disaster, it will hurt the densest populated areas, which is ribeira brava/camara dos lobos/funchal and caniso, roughly speaking, where probably more than 2/3 of the population is located, and is entirely dependent on the levadas that bring water from the northern side and the big wilderness areas of the two main peaks of the island, east and west (the tallest one is 1.8km)

honestly, i don't think it's the greatest place for natural disaster but for simple WW3 and other similar nazi germany style situation anywhere here is probably great