Have you ever lived through an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood?

In 2002 we had a very mild earthquake here. It was early in the morning and I was still half asleep and I thought a cat had jumped on my bed and was scratching itself. I learned later is was an earthquake.

Not so with the tornado that passed through in 1998. It was a category 3. I don't remember the wind as much as the constant lightning and thunder. Fortunately no damage to the house. The center passed about 2 miles south. Some people were wiped out with property damage - no fatalities, thankfully. Considering the rarity of tornadoes in upstate NY, this was a history maker.
 
I've lived through 2 well know blizzards here in WNY, blizzard of '77 Buffalo and outlining areas were on national news every night for a week
That storm wasn't as scary as the most recent Xmas blizzard of '22,winds started to pick up around 9:30am at times 70mph. We lost power for 4 hrs then came back on but didn't get our phone,TV, internet service until the next day For awhile, we thought the windows would blow out but they didn't
I ventured outside the day after to see where the snow piles were half way up the telephone poles The street I live on is a main throughfare so it was plowed ok. My friends, Marcia&Dave who live 2 blocks away didn't get their 1 way street plowed until 3 days later
 

Minor trembles usually below a 5 @ home, experienced several typhoons & tropical storms while stationed in the Pacific region. Had to tape large X's on each window between, then clean them off, then tape again for the next typhoon. Must be the military mindset, busy work?
 
Murrmurr said:
I've experienced 2 major wildfires, 2 earthquakes, and 1 flood.

I was so close to not escaping the wildfires in time, I swear the seat of my pants was on fire. Luckily, my cabin was spared.

I didn't live at the epicenter of the earthquakes, so for me, they were mild. Pictures fell off the wall and some books leaned over during the first one, but nothing broke during either of them.

The flood was a drag because we couldn't drive for a while and a lot of places had to close. But the water didn't get in the house because our street was on a little hill. Still, I laid sandbags all along the front, 3 bags high in some spots, just in case. The yard was totally underwater, though. The flood receded within a few days.

Tornadoes are beautiful and awesome from a safe distance. I have no desire to encounter one up-close, though.
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Several major wildfires, one of which burned our house in Chatsworth in 1967. Experienced several strong destructive earthquakes, fortunately we weren't in the damage zone.
 
Murrmurr said:
I was so close to not escaping the wildfires in time, I swear the seat of my pants was on fire. Luckily, my cabin was spared.
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Yeah, been thru a couple of those up at the cabin

One came real close
Watched the scout planes and choppers spraying stuff
then the big belly dump planes
Swooped down right over our heads
Felt like we could reach up and touch it

Watched it all from our meadow

Too close....too too close

Luckily the wind was blowing north
We were just a mile or so south of it
 
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A 7.5 Quake on Shemya Island, AL Lost the roadway and no boats. Had to gut it out.

The Landers, California Quake in 1992. That one was a 7.2 minimum damage to the house.

The Northridge, California Quake in 1994. Only a 6.7 one, but threw both of us out of bed and did enough
damage to the house that it was unlivable.

100 year flood here in Nashville, 2010

Typhoon on Guam

In the 20+ years living in Nebraska had a few Tornados come close, but no direct hits.
 
Only blizzards, sometimes lasting a couple of days.

The worst that happened was that my brother and I had to climb out his bedroom window and ski off the top of the porch roof to get to school. It usually took the plows a couple of days to get to our neighborhood.

We never did lose power because of a blizzard, but boy oh boy, what usually happened after a blizzard was that it would turn very, very cold. Like -30 to -40 F. That's cold. Nobody mentioned wind chill in those days.
 
If you live in Ms you will always get the remnants of hurricanes and tornadoes are just a fact in Ms. We had a tornado here about 15 or so years ago, downtown was off limits for days and hurricanes are just about a given or the remnants of them are.We don't like either one.
 
We had a flood in 1994 that drenched our valley and house. It was running from our backdoor to our front door. The water reached 3 1/2 ft. We turned the power off because of the wall outlets. Moved a washer and dryer to higher ground. We were running around waste deep in water with a flashlight. The car parked outside flooded. We left it alone for a about 10 days...no harm. (lucky ). The clean up was something else. WHAT A MESS. The mud was 2 inches thick all over the house. I was finding snakes in my room for a week. :eek:
 
Many earthquakes, several typhoons while at sea, a major volcanic eruption, multiple floods and one hurricane. Additionally, I have endured serveral major explosions from females whom I have known. No tornadoes though.
 
Georgiagranny said:
Only blizzards, sometimes lasting a couple of days.

The worst that happened was that my brother and I had to climb out his bedroom window and ski off the top of the porch roof to get to school. It usually took the plows a couple of days to get to our neighborhood.

We never did lose power because of a blizzard, but boy oh boy, what usually happened after a blizzard was that it would turn very, very cold. Like -30 to -40 F. That's cold. Nobody mentioned wind chill in those days.
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We don't often get blizzards here, but we do get ice storms that can take out power for days and make driving impossible on any but the main highways.
 
If you’re ever in Wellington, NZ go to the science centre. There’s a demo of the movement from an earthquake. You watch a video and the shaking starts. It’s not very long and felt like forever. You are hanging on to a railing. No thanks.

The little bit of a quake we had at work once was nerve wracking.
 
When my tour in England came to an end, there were 3 openings in my Career Field.
One slot was a base in California and the other two were slots needed to filled at Minot, North Dakota.

I called the wife asking what her preference was, knowing North Dakota was out, and she picked
March AFB, near Riverside, California.

When I mentioned the Earthquakes, she said 'We'll just deal with it, DO YOU WANT TO DO A WINTER
AT MINOT????'

We moved to California...
 
Gary O' said:
Yeah, been thru a couple of those up at the cabin

One came real close
Watched the scout planes and choppers spraying stuff
then the big belly dump planes
Swooped down right over our heads
Felt like we could reach up and touch it

Watched it all from our meadow

Too close....too too close

Luckily the wind was blowing north
We were just a mile of so south of it
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I didn't have to evacuate from my home during either fire, though one of 'em came within a mile of it, but I was ordered to close up my store and evacuate from it. There were only 2 roads out of town, and I took the one less traveled. Both sides of that road were on fire but with fewer cars on it, we could all drive as fast as we needed to, and we used both lanes as needed because nobody was coming in at the time. That was a really scary drive.

The store survived both those fires but, unfortunately, it completely burned down in the "Camp Fire" in 2018, about 2 years after I sold it. And there's also nothing left of the cabin behind the store, which I rented while I lived and worked there. (the cabin I own is quite a bit farther north, near Susanville, and it's fine.)
 
Nathan said:
Several major wildfires, one of which burned our house in Chatsworth in 1967. Experienced several strong destructive earthquakes, fortunately we weren't in the damage zone.
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The epicenter of both earthquakes I felt was a town called Antelope (Calif), which I don't think ever had an earthquake before then (I could be wrong). I remember one of them "only" scored a 5.6 on the Richter Scale, but it caused a train derailment with multiple injuries.

That was in the 1980s, I think....or late 70s, maybe.
 
F5 tornado August 28, 1990 Plainfield, Illinois. Google it to see pictures. Unbelievable devastation. I was at work and everyone was supposed to go into a safe room in our building. Tornado sirens were blaring. I left work because my daughter would be arriving home from school and would be by herself. I did not want her to be alone with this storm coming.

I have to admit that was the scariest ride home in my life. I could see the storm wall coming right behind me. It was not a funnel like in pictures. This was like a black wall of destruction 100 yards wide. I made it home just in time to grab my daughter and head for the basement. I don't think she was ever happier to see me. The house was shaking and it literally sounded like a freight train was running next to the house. We were fortunate the tornado turned missed our house. Others were not so lucky 29 people lost their life. It is a good thing the high school was let out just before the storm as very little remained standing.

Tornados are scary because they come up so quickly, you don't have time to prepare for them.
 
We lived in Wichita, KS. for 4 years in the late 60's. 3 or 4 times each Summer, we had to rush to the tornado shelter as a strong system came through the area. One time, a funnel hit about 1/2 mile away and destroyed a small shopping center....and the debris was spread all over the area. When I got a chance to transfer to Kansas City, my wife and I said YES, quickly.
 

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