Who here been through a (somewhat major) natural disaster?

[Sussudio]

So I just moved to the West Coast a few months ago and felt my first earthquake tonight (which I'm terrified of)...I'm hoping the major earthquake everyone says LA is long overdue for will come much later rather than sooner

Anyone here gone through a big quake? Hurricane? Tornado, etc? Where were you/what was the was the experience like?

[pacificvibes]

There was an earthquake tonight??? UH


When I was younger, my family and I drove throw a major fire. I cant remember where we were but flames were on both sides of the car.


OH yea and welcome to Cali

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by pacificvibes

There was an earthquake tonight??? UH

I believe a minor one...unless something else made my apartment shake I found an earthquake site that records incidents/dates/times so I'm going to check in the morning to see if it was actually reported..

When I was younger, my family and I drove throw a major fire. I cant remember where we were but flames were on both sides of the car.

that's intense!!

[pacificvibes]

Originally Posted by Sussudio

I believe a minor one...unless something else made my apartment shake I found an earthquake site that records occurrences/dates/times so I'm going to check in the morning to see if it was actually reported..

It was probably your neighbors slamming hit. HAHA

The people that live below us slam their front door so loud, I swear to all that is mighty, everything shakes.

[4K display]

We were heading back to Edmonton after work right into the path of a killer F4 Tornado (windspeeds were very near F5) and luckily diverted to a buddy's house just outside the city limits. Camped out in his basement for an hour with quivering sphincters.

Driving through the destruction afterwards was simply unbelievable. I imagine for some people in the US Tornadoes are as common as rain, but for us folk in Alberta back in 87 this was unheard of, it was our Black Friday.

[bhampton]

Was in Miami for Hurricane Andrew.

One of my friends that was very poor loved it because he moved into "tent city" in homestead and had free rent, food, free wind up radio, and there were girls there too... living in a baseball field in a huge tent. He was loving life for a few weeks after the hurricane.

-Brian

[Steve]

I've been lucky all my life. I'm on the east coast right at the GA/FL state line and for some reasons hurricanes never hit us directly here. They're always headed right for us and then at the last minute swerve north or south. I suspect out luck will run out one day though......

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by Sussudio

So I just moved to the West Coast a few months ago and felt my first earthquake tonight (which I'm terrified of)...I'm hoping the major earthquake everyone says LA is long overdue for will come much later rather than sooner

Anyone here gone through a big quake? Hurricane? Tornado, etc? Where were you/what was the was the experience like?

I've been through a few hurricanes (New Orleans), one minor earthquake (Portland, OR), and one tornado (Lubbock, TX). The major hurricane (Katrina) I was out of town so I didn't ride it out, but I've been through the major after effects.

Most of the hurricanes I've ridden out where low category storms, 1s and 2s. They are to me a major thunderstorm with heavy winds and rain. I would go outside and smoke and just watch them. The worst one flooded the street almost to the doorstep and the house was raised about 2-3 feet off the ground. We were stuck inside waiting on the water to go down hoping it wouldn't come inside the townhouse we were renting at the time. Another one I rode out I had to work, so I walked through water on the way to work with a bag full of clothes to change into once I got to work. I put my headphones on and just started going. It was only about a mile so it wasn't too bad, and kind of fun. I didn't have to worry about traffic because every street was flooded, and work was completely dead because nobody wanted to drive in that mess.

The earthquake scared me even more because I've never been through one, and all of a sudden well, the ground moved. That's not normal to me and I was like what the **** is going on?!?!?! It was a very minor one and everybody that had been through one wasn't even phased, but it freaked me out!

[gvortex7]

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 (major event)
Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina in 2005 (these two weren't that bad)

[Anthony P]

I guess the worst (felt most) was the ice storm of 1998.

unlike the rest, where we all know what a hurricane or an earthquake is, my guess is many don't know what is meant by ice storm (especially since the the first time I heard of it was in 98 when it happened here).

In essence sometimes the temperature high up is warmer then on the ground, so what happens is that it starts off as rain until it stops dropping and it immediately gets cold enough to turn into ice. Freezing rain (as it is called) is nothing new and will happen a couple of times in the winter here. But that year, the freezing rain was plentiful and continued none-stop for three consecutive days until everything was couverfd in thick ice. It looked beautiful and amazing, like a crystal paradise but the issue is that ice is heavy and because of its weight some buildings, some trees and more importantly many towers and pylons bringing electricity collapsed . It was further aggravated because it was followed by a cold snap.

The tree in my front yard literally split in two down the middle from the weight on its branches and trunk, we did not have electricity (heat) for close to a week but for others it was for close to a month. At first we tried staying at home bundeled up in coats, gloves….(while going out to restaurants and malls to warm up and eat) but eventually we moved out and went to stay at my grand parents home, calling several times a day to see if the answering machine would come on to know if the power was back on and we could get back home.

[Rob71]

I'm in NE Florida and agree with Fireman 325. We've been extremely lucky the last 30 years or so. We either get the remnants of a Gulf storm or catch the trailing edge of one hitting GA/SC or Central FL. But it's only a matter of time I guess. I have been through a couple of close calls with tornadoes. One touched down a block away from my Brothers house in NC during a visit and took out a few trailers(why trailers?) And I drove through the FL wildfires a few years ago going down 95S. That was very interesting. Been really lucky, the worst I ever experienced was no power for 4 days. But I have a generator, so the beer was safe.

[JJ]

I went through several minor earthquakes back when I lived in Peru as a child, but I don't remember them - I wasn't in FL when Andrew hit, but I was when Katrina and Wilma hit.

Katrina, thanks to several idiocies by the command at UM - hit the city RIGHT as I was getting out of class - I used to live across the street from Miami's campus, and couldn't make it in the wind and pouring rain. Couldn't see. Ended up being stuck on campus for 2 days.

For Wilma, I had no power for 2 weeks. Ate spaghetti and tuna for 2 weeks. Exciting. But the storm itself wasn't so bad.

[skatalite]

I lived in southern California for 13 years, and lived through the Northridge Quake of 1994. I would've slept through it, had my dad not run down the hallways yelling "earthquakre! Earthquake!"

Don't be scared of earthquakes, though. I mean, as long as you don't live on the side of a hill or something :P

I've been living in Oklahoma for 10 years now. Tornadoes are much scarier, believe me. **** tornadoes.

[jbig31]

Living here in Michigan the only really severe weather related incident that I can remember was back when I was a little kid in 1978-the Blizzard of '78.

Being only 7, I don't remember everything, but I do remember soooo much snow that we where snowed in our house for a few days-I remember my dad opening the garage door and you couldn't even walk or see out because of all the snow drifts that had covered everything-you couldn't see out the windows as well. I also remember that we didn't have school for a while.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1978

[Dexter Morgan]

Hurricane Gloria (1985). I was only six years old at the time, so I don't remember much about it. I always hear stories from some of my older family members about the crazy things they did during that storm though, such as driving down to the beach to check the waves out while all of the local roads were closed. I do remember a huge tree in our front yard being split in half and the power being out for about a week or so.

[Diesel]

I had my first natural disaster before I even had my first birthday. Hurricane Andrew.

I live in south-east Louisiana, so I've been through just about every hurricane/tropical storm/depression that has affected the area since 1991 (17 excluding the depressions and ones that didn't actually make landfall here like Ike last year).


I've only left my home 4 times (the women of our family made us all leave): Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike.

For Katrina and Gustav, I traveled to a little town north of Alexandria (and we still got hit by Gustav).
For Rita and Ike we just drove across down to my aunts house since my house is what we call "down the bayou" (the bayou is right across the road from my house, and there is a canal in the back of our property).

I've never been scared of hurricanes, growing up around here, it's just a way of life. When Hurricane Lili and Tropical Storm Isidore came right up my neck of the woods in 2002, I was out playing in my front yard (until the water started coming up in Lili's case).

[GLaDOS]

Well, I can still recall the time Hurricane Isabel passed by through Maryland. My family and I were sleeping, but I was being disturbed about what's going on outside. I peeked through the window from our apartment and then I saw strong winds bending and snapping trees, threshing out heavy rain, throwing debris everywhere.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Marquoz

I've been through a few hurricanes (New Orleans), one minor earthquake (Portland, OR), and one tornado (Lubbock, TX). The major hurricane (Katrina) I was out of town so I didn't ride it out, but I've been through the major after effects.

Most of the hurricanes I've ridden out where low category storms, 1s and 2s. They are to me a major thunderstorm with heavy winds and rain. I would go outside and smoke and just watch them. The worst one flooded the street almost to the doorstep and the house was raised about 2-3 feet off the ground. We were stuck inside waiting on the water to go down hoping it wouldn't come inside the townhouse we were renting at the time. Another one I rode out I had to work, so I walked through water on the way to work with a bag full of clothes to change into once I got to work. I put my headphones on and just started going. It was only about a mile so it wasn't too bad, and kind of fun. I didn't have to worry about traffic because every street was flooded, and work was completely dead because nobody wanted to drive in that mess.

The earthquake scared me even more because I've never been through one, and all of a sudden well, the ground moved. That's not normal to me and I was like what the **** is going on?!?!?! It was a very minor one and everybody that had been through one wasn't even phased, but it freaked me out!

That's a true Louisianian right there

I love to sit outside in the low category storms.

[Uniquely]

Hurricane Frederic 1979
Hurricane Ivan 2004
Hurricane Katrina 2005

All struck Mobile AL pretty hard.... but I think Frederic was the worst of the bunch. Especially since they were much slower to get utilities back up in those days. We were without water for five days and without power for two weeks. My family owned a jewelry store that actually burnt down during the hurricane.

[GOAT]

The Maine Ice Storm of 1998... I was 9 at the time... it was pretty brutal but we got the least of it really compared to others in the state