Mother Nature's Fury

[Debi]

While we're Hurricane watching this new storm, it brings up the question:

What is the worst natural disaster or storm you have faced?

For you guys out West, we will also include wildfires, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. Anything Mother Nature has thrown at you!
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[Stevedog]

Well I grew up in Los Angeles CA, so earthquakes, fires and floods make the list. I lived outside Nashville TN for a while so add tornadoes and ice storms. Then there was monsoon season in Arizona and huge dust storms in Texas. I'm currently living in Denver CO which has had some pretty substantial blizzards.

I think all I'm missing is a volcano, meteor strike and a sharknado.

 

[Paulm]

living on the coast there's the hurricanes, we haven't had above a cat 1 hit here in a very long time though. we have the yearly tornadoes every spring. we've had a couple those come within a half mile.... been through a sandstorm in the desert and quite a few snowstorms and ice storms.

 

[Duke]

I've been through two tornadoes, a hurricane, an earthquake, a monsoon, and a blizzard. Far and away, the blizzard was the scariest.

Never been in a wildfire, but was in southern Utah at a secure test site and with binoculars could watch fire bombers dropping their loads on a fire roughly 10 miles away. Could easily smell the smoke.

 

[Debi]

I've been in 4 huge blizzards, 2 hurricanes, 1 tropical storm, and had enough tornado encounters to make me a bit paranoid.

By far the worst was in Florida. The 3 PM rains were headed in as usual, and suddenly the sky turned green and the clouds black. I felt the barometric pressure drop like a hot potato and grabbed my youngest who was 5. The other two were just being dismissed from school when this hit but school held them there. We were in a mobile home and when I heard the freight train noise I knew what it was, as I'd been through several tornadoes growing up in Indiana. I tried to get out of the house to run to the shelter but the negative pressure wouldn't let me open the door. By that point I was out of time, so threw myself and child under the kitchen table and hung on for dear life.

The tornado ripped off the next door carport, jumped over the house and took out a barn behind us. From that day on my son has had a terrible fear of storms and watches the weather like a hawk. When we moved to this house the biggest selling point was it has a storm cellar!

 

[crux]

Earthquakes, of course, though I was never injured by them. In the 1980s there was a big quake in the SF Bay Area where I grew up. Among other things, it caused the top level of a double freeway overpass to collapse down on the lower lever, crushing many cars. I used to drive on that lower level frequently. In fact, I commuted daily on it when I worked in the city years earlier. But, by the time that quake happened, I had already moved south to LA.

After moving to LA we had a big quake here in the 1990s. It collapsed a multilevel concrete parking structure like a stack of pancakes. I used to park on the bottom level every day for a job I had but the business moved to another location about a month before that quake. It happened early in the morning when I was still in bed. It literally threw me out of bed to the floor. A few days later I was standing in my apartment and a strong aftershock yanked the floor sideways, folding up one ankle. I limped for a few days afterward. Then, I was at work in a tall office building when another aftershock hit. I was on a break outside on a terrace 18 stories up which tossed and rolled like a boat on rough water. That was kind of exciting.

 

[garnetsilver]

I haven't been through a lot of dramatic weather occurrences. I do remember when I was around six years old and we were standing at the living room windows watching furniture float down the street. My mother explained that it was due to a hurricane that had passed us, with torrential rains.

I was present for a couple hurricanes when I lived down in Florida and the worse that happened was power outages and a tree split in half and one half landed on the single level apartment building I lived in. I've experienced blizzards and ice storms but thankfully was not out in them.

 

[Selectric]

Hurricane Sandy could've been a lot worse for us if the storm came in south of us. Experienced a deracho which was pretty nuts. I remember quite a bit of snow storms when younger, some decent ones in recent years. Biggest flood was in the 90's when it rained bible style and washed out many bridges and the overpass here in town. I remember they called in engineers to make sure the dam wasn't compromised. Had other hurricanes through the years obviously living near the coast. Mentioned about the nasty ice storm before on site. Never drove an ice cube before that one lol. Only ever experienced tornadoes, meteor/comet strikes, alien invasions and very large monster attacks in dreams, thankfully.

 

[Selectric]

sharknado

That was a good laugh, thanks man!

 

[Stevedog]

Earthquakes, of course, though I was never injured by them. In the 1980s there was a big quake in the SF Bay Area where I grew up. Among other things, it caused the top level of a double freeway overpass to collapse down on the lower lever, crushing many cars. I used to drive on that lower level frequently. In fact, I commuted daily on it when I worked in the city years earlier. But, by the time that quake happened, I had already moved south to LA.

After moving to LA we had a big quake here in the 1990s. It collapsed a multilevel concrete parking structure like a stack of pancakes. I used to park on the bottom level every day for a job I had but the business moved to another location about a month before that quake. It happened early in the morning when I was still in bed. It literally threw me out of bed to the floor. A few days later I was standing in my apartment and a strong aftershock yanked the floor sideways, folding up one ankle. I limped for a few days afterward. Then, I was at work in a tall office building when another aftershock hit. I was on a break outside on a terrace 18 stories up which tossed and rolled like a boat on rough water. That was kind of exciting.

This sounds like the Northridge earthquake of '94. My Step-Dad's mother was living there at the time. The quake hit early morning, it didn’t do damage in our area but it was enough to wake us up. We turned on the news to see where it was centered and how big it was.

Seeing that the epicenter was in Northridge caused immediate concern. For one thing, "Grandma" lived there but also we lived over 60 miles away and it was strong enough to wake us. I believe it was somewhere around 6.5-7.0 on the Richter scale. My Step-Dad called his Mom to see if she was okay. It took a couple of tries to get through. When she did answer she was crying saying that she was looking around in her livingroom and everything was gone. He told her not to stand in the livingroom and to go outside instead. She replied that she was outside, in her living room but also outside at the same time.

My Step-Dad and I jumped in the truck and drove to her house to get her. It took a few hours and the closer we got the more damage we saw. The one that got me was seeing a freeway overpass that looked like a giant had grabbed a piece and ripped it off.

About a block or two from her house was a city park. As we drove past we saw a line of vans, trucks and SUVs parked on the grass forming a big circle. Inside this circle there must have been about 60-70 people with folding chairs, folding tables and quite a few tents set up. It reminded me of the old west movies where they circle the wagons for safety. I remember thinking that I was looking at the absolute destruction that nature can bring but also the strength, kindness and fortitude that humanity possesses.