what natural disaster(s) have you lived through?

[nubly]

what natural disaster(s) have you lived through?

i've only been in earthquakes when i lived in california and a monsoon when i lived in south korea.

[Lonelyguy]

Tornado when I was 18. It was never confirmed but given the amount of damage on our property and in the surrounding area I have no doubt that's what it was. It looked like a bomb had went off, trees torn to shreds and buildings literally exploded. Fortunately there was only minor damage on my house.

Also many blizzards. I can remember lots of times over the years where there was zero visibility and my home was completely sealed off from civilization for days at a time because the road was plugged with snow drifts over five feet deep. The only way in and out is by snowmobile so all you can do is sit and wait until they get the road open, hoping there's not an emergency.

[Duke of Prunes]

Never been in any of those. Good old English weather, might be cold and wet but at least it's predictable. There have been some floods quite near me though, but I don't live near any rivers myself and we have good drains so it'd take some freak heavy rain to cause a flood here.

[Banzai]

Originally Posted by Duke of Prunes

Never been in any of those. Good old English weather, might be cold and wet but at least it's predictable. There have been some floods quite near me though, but I don't live near any rivers myself and we have good drains so it'd take some freak heavy rain to cause a flood here.

Ditto this. I live right by the River Thames but never been through a flood or anything...I think the Thames Barrier protects my area. Not sure though.

When I went to Vietnam, it was during Monsoon season...no flooding or anything like that though but there were a couple of small cyclones. Again, nothing major.

[coldmorning]

I've been through hurricanes, blizzards and earthquakes.

And fog probably doesn't count as a natural disaster but when I lived in San Diego, they had a 100 car pile-up due to fog.

[shyvr6]

Been in several hurricanes. I even surfed in a couple, lol. I also been in a few blizzards. I can't really count tornados, but the closest one that came by my house was about half a mile away.

[Jnmcda0]

The closest I've come to being in a natural disaster is when the remnants of a hurricane came through last year with hurricane-force winds (keep in mind that I live about 600 miles from the ocean) and knocked power out to 90% of the Cincinnati area.

This is a pretty safe area as far as natural disasters go. Not that many tornados, not a ton of snow, not close to the ocean, occasional flooding in lower-lying areas (though most of the area is on higher ground), and few wildfires or earthquakes (although we are somewhat close to the New Madrid fault, which produced the strongest earthquake in US history in the early 1800s).

[SilentLoner]

I lived through the 2001 El Salvador earthquakes. Two major ones plus thousands of smaller aftershocks in two months. Not fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_El...or_earthquakes

And in 2002 in Connecticut I had to walk home in the early stages of a blizzard.

[Keith]

2 hurricanes the first i don't remember and a blizzard

[Meli24R]

Nothing major really..I've been in blizzards and tornadoes have come pretty close to my area.

[thepretender]

Tornado here in MS when I was younger. And in 1994 there was this really bad freeze in MS and I almost got killed by a falling limb with like an inch of ice on it, if that counts, lol.

Tornado in AL a few years ago (was on national news cause it took out the high school ;/). Quite a few hurricanes in south AL too.

[Meee]

None. England is boring. Unless crappy random depressing weather counts as a disaster. Or minor 'earthquakes' that might slightly adjust the hanging angle of a wall picture at worst.

[somethinginthewind]

A few serious blizzards/ice storms, growing up in Northern Ontario.

[anonymid]

Just blizzards, I suppose. I've lived in New England most of my life, which is pretty much one of the safest places you can be on the planet, as far as natural disasters are concerned.

I do remember feeling a very, very mild earthquake in Vermont seven or eight years ago. And there was Hurricane Gloria way back in '85 or '86 or whenever. But neither of those were anywhere close to being serious enough to count as "disasters."

[copper]

When I was 16 a F4 tornado now known as an EF5 tornado almost hit our house, but luckily it followed a small creek and missed us. We were all in the basement ready for it to hit. I thought for sure when the lights went out we were in for it, but it never came. It did hit a few houses NE of town. Now where I live tornadoes are very rare. The only thing we have to live with here is the huge amount of snow we get thanks to Lake Superior.

[Logan X]

My Alcoholic father.

Oh and the Montreal ice storm in 1998.

http://windupradio.com/icestorm.htm

[Meee]

Originally Posted by Logan X

My Alcoholic father.

I've been through that too :/

[pita]

Does SARS count?

[Annie K]

I've been through one earthquake, several hurricanes, and three or four blizzards/ice storms.

[Just Lurking]

I haven't experienced what I'd call a "natural disaster". Not much happens here. We get blizzards, tornadoes, and hurricane leftovers.

For blizzards, I don't remember getting anything that's crippled us for any more than 12-24 hours... We're pretty resilient when it comes to snow.

We also get tornadoes in the city once in a while. I haven't experienced one or seen one first hand though. So far, we haven't been hit by anything other than a couple weak F1s (maybe an F2?). Well, call them "weak" but don't tell that to the people who get hit directly because they do cause a decent amount of damage.

Then there are hurricane leftovers which we get here occasionally, but the storms are usually pretty soft by the time they make it here. The exception would be Hurricane Hazel in 1954 which was still a full fledged hurricane when it rolled over us. THAT caused a lot of flooding and would fall under 'natural disaster' I think. That was, uh, a few years before my time though so that doesn't count for me.

We're pretty far inland (Southern Ontario here), so a hurricane's gotta have a looootta steam to hit us at full strength. Hazel's been the only one so far.