Name a natural or national (your city) disaster you were in.

[Sequoia]

For me, the "Northridge" earthquake and the Los Angeles riots of the 1990s.

[mvd]

1. Remnants of Hurricane Floyd were really bad

Over 10 inches of rain in some spots here.

[Lady President]

8. Me too, Hurricane Floyd

I was vacationing in Atlantic City. The eye of the storm went right over us. It was something to see. When we drove back to Ohio a few days later, there were huge areas still flooded.

A few months ago a tornado hit a mile or so down the road-- took out a new subdivision. No one was hurt. I live about four miles from my mom and the tornado hit directly between our house. I should have played the lottery that day.

[mvd]

13. In 1994, there was a Category 3 tornado about 3 miles from me

Came at night and killed a family. Freaky thing in this area. There are often at least 1-2 small tornadoes a year in the whole Delaware Valley area, but very rarely anything above a Category 2.

We just got bad lightening and heavy rain where we were, so I was surprised to hear about the tornado the next day.

[Ms_Dem_Meanor]

99. me three in DE...

I remember the tornados also. One came pass my house. It was about three blocks away.

[u4ic]

2. The largest evacuation in North American history

at the time.

The Mississauga train derailment of 1979 occurred on November 10, 1979, in Canada, when a 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario was derailed near the intersection of Mavis Road and Dundas Street in Mississauga, Ontario. As a result of the derailment, over 200,000 people were evacuated in what was then the largest peacetime evacuation in North America up until the New Orleans evacuation of 2005. Fortunately and remarkably, there were no deaths resulting from the spill.

At 11:53 p.m., at the Mavis Road crossing, the damaged undercarriage left the track, causing most of the rest of the train to derail. The impact caused several tanker cars filled with propane to burst into flames.

The derailment also ruptured several other tankers, spilling styrene, toluene, propane, caustic soda, and chlorine onto the tracks and into the air. A huge explosion resulted, sending a fireball 1,500 m into the sky which could be seen from 100 km away. As the flames were erupting, a train worker managed to close a brake valve on the undamaged 32nd car, allowing the engineer to drive the front part of the train eastward along the tracks and out of danger.

After further explosions, firefighters concentrated on cooling cars, allowing the fire to burn itself out, but a ruptured chlorine tank became a cause for concern. With the possibility of a deadly cloud of chlorine gas spreading through suburban Mississauga, over 200,000 people were evacuated.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga_train_derailment_of_1979



That accident changed the way dangerous goods were transported in Canada.

[SPKrazy]

5. Good Gawd That's A Horrible Disaster!

train derailment with chemicals on board is like one of my biggest nightmare scenarios.

Glad you were okay!

:hug:

[u4ic]

12. I was just watching a video

about it I found on the net, and the fire chief said the explosion blew a tanker car 700 metres.

If you're interested in watching it...there's footage of the explosions: http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp?date=11/10/2004
(at the very bottom of the page. There's also some interesting discussion about fighting fires that contain toxic materials)


I'm glad I'm okay, too! :-) :hug:

[SPKrazy]

14. Dangerous Video

glad you are okay too!

LOL

:hug:

[ironflange]

92. Holy shit! You were mixed up in that ?!?

Wow. I haven't seen anything worse than those hailstorms we get here now and then. Wait, in 2000 we were on our way to Europe and the plane had to detour around a huge storm. We found out the next day that it was the one that messed up the campground at Pine Lake.

[u4ic]

94. Yippers

that's where I'm from, originally. :)

Hell, your hailstorms are bad enough! We got stuck in one...in the late 70's...on vacation in Calgary. The car looked like it had had a serious case of smallpox. The windshield cracked, as well.

I remember very well that storm in Pine Lake...I was up a few stories in an apartment building, and was watching a weird air mass right in front of me. It literally looked like it was starting to swirl; it seemed to span a couple of blocks. I called up a friend and said "just watch - they'll be a tornado somewhere". Sure enough, late that night, there was.

It was a very bizarre things to watch.

If you recall the huge tornado in Barrie in the mid 80's, I saw the cloud as it passed over us. There wasn't a funnel yet, but I have never seen a cloud that green. Again, later that day, the tornado hit a ways away.


I wasn't in Edmonton yet for the 1987 tornado.


Glad you missed the Pine Lake storm! You definitely didn't want to be near that.


Ooh...Europe, 1986, let me see. A guy in front of us at Pearson airport tried to get through security with a suitcase full of guns...

After we docked off the ferry from Folkstone to Boulogne, there were police everywhere. Turned out there was a bomb threat on our crossing.

Then, only a few days after I left Paris, a huge bomb went off only a block away from where we were staying. I remember at least one person being killed.

[ironflange]

114. I remember the '79 storm

The sky to the north was a weird yellow color, then we could literally hear it coming. It broke some replacement windows sitting in the yard, but that was it. My old red '74 Super Beetle took a direct hit, but afterward you had to look really hard to see any dents. A Honda Civic next to it was nearly destroyed, those VWs were made tough.

The Pine Lake storm. . . we were at altitude by then, and I had to squeeze right up against the window to see the top of that cloud. Then coming home there was a delay at Heathrow because some guy had a bullet (obviously a dud) as a keychain decoration. They were giving him a bit of a grilling, but his attitude wasn't helping.

[Blue-Jay]

3. The Big Bang.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

87. I was living in Eden at the fall of mankind

:(

[Shell Beau]

4. Katrina

Didn't really hit my city hard, but we did feel the effects in JAckson, MS.

[LSK]

6. Bush 2001-2008

:scared:

[Ms_Dem_Meanor]

100. HERE, HERE!!!

:grr:

[SPKrazy]

7. Hell Of A Tornado

didn't hit my house, but you could feel the wind changing and shifting, and pressure changes, and like an idiot I went outside and could see it in the distance. It killed 3 people, all kids. It leveled houses all along it's path. I volunteered with the Salvation Army after that and we went to the areas that were hit, unbelievable damage. Talked to person after person who took shelter in a bathroom or closet, at the last minute. This in the city across the river from here (hit both places) and no one was killed in that city.

After that experience I could identify tornado damage vs. straight wind damage so easily. The whole thing made a serious impression on me.

There were no official tornado warnings, or sirens that went off when it hit either city. This being after the National Weather Service closed their office in our city and we had to rely on Tulsa's service which didn't give the warning. They couldn't see the tornado with their radar being too far away.

After that, the NWS put a doppler station here, the local stations put in doppler too. (1996)

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. Loma Prieta earthquake

Oct. 17, 1989, 5:04 p.m.

Maybe you heard about it.

[lizziegrace]

18. That still makes me want to cry

The images are so awful.

[XemaSab]

22. Loma Prieta 1989

and I missed the hills fire by a month.

The golf course next to my middle school was the firebreak. I know someone who died. All my neighbors sat in the field next to my old house and watched it coming down the hill. :scared:

[ohiosmith]

10. The great OhioSmith circumcision of 47.

[Left Is Write]

11. The "selection" of 2000.

[lizziegrace]

15. 1994 Ice Storm - Oxford MS

No power for 11 days and no water for 3 days. No food in the house, no manual can opener and no way to heat. Lelapin and I, after the 2nd or 3rd day, ended up sleeping on the floor in strangers' homes who were lucky enough to get power or had fireplaces. It was very, very ugly. Tankers had to bring in water and the National Guard was called in. We were declared a disaster area.

Warnings of ice still send me into near-hysteria.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fuzz]

17. I was on a cruise that ended in Miami the day Hurricane Andrew hit

missed our flight out because the ship was late, went on standby, finally got out on one of the last planes to Atlanta (we picked Atlanta because that's where most of their flights were going) around midnight. Got up the next morning and watched the carnage thankful we made it out.

I also met my wife on that cruise.

[ironflange]

117. So you didn't quite escape unscathed

:rofl:

Kidding, kidding!

[Fuzz]

141. You are so right, and I'm not kidding!!!

;)

[BrewerJohn]

19. the Alaska earthquake of 1964

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/usa/1964_03_28.html

I was pretty young at the time (honest!) and in Anchorage. My family escaped major damage, but
we were without power and water for about a week. I remember water being distributed from
tanker trucks. For about the next year following we went to school in one of two shifts per
day because of the extensive damage to school facilities.

I see the USGS has set the magnitude at 9.2...at the time we thought it was "only" 8.6!

[lizziegrace]

21. The video of that was amazing

watching the ocean flow into a huge opening in the sea floor

[huskerlaw]

20. The Great Malibu Fire of January 2007

I mean, Suzanne Somers lost her house! Could it possibly be any more horrible??

Ok, in all honesty, I feel very bad for Suzanne and everyone else who lost their house. That's got to be one of the most awful feelings in the world.

That said, nobody was seriously injured and yet the media treated it like it was a ginormous catastrophe.

[Sequoia]

23. That Topanga fire of November 1993 was very awful.

My future husband living in Topanga Canyon at the time lost his job, home, and car in an instant. His neighbor's home just a few hundred yards away and was untouched.

[huskerlaw]

24. Yes, that fire was WAY worse

They've been talking about that one a lot for the past couple of days as well.

[Sequoia]

80. I wish I could LA TV news like NBC4 or KCAL.

Back when satellite tv first came out you could get a broadcast from basically anywhere; not so anymore. Someone at work actually said about the Topagna Fire..."Guess someone didn't want him there." I had to explain to the cold hearted idiot how people had died and many, many homes were destroyed, and that she'd better hope she's never in a fire. As far as I know they never caught the people who did it who we always thought was on of those out of work volunteer firemen. So many of them start fires around the country and remember that one who would start fires up and down the coast?

[BarenakedLady]

25. Blizzard of 1978

In Rhode Island

[trof]

26. IVAN

Kicked my ass.

[Ptah]

27. When I was 13, this flood was near our farm:

Top Ten Montana Weather Events of the 20th Century

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/tfx/tx.php?wfo=tfx&type=html&loc=text&fx=topweather

#1)
Saturday June 6, 1964. A slow moving line of thunderstorms brought torrential rains
to the Rocky Mountain Front of western Montana. Record 24 hour rainfall amounts
of 8 to 14 inches fell along the east slopes of the Continental Divide. Near the
Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Gibson Reservoir received enough inflow to fill it two
and a half times. The dam is 195.5 feet tall and contains 99,057 acre-feet of water when full.
Water flowing out of Gibson Dam flows into the Sun River. The Sun River runs southeast toward
Great Falls where it empties into the Missouri. Typically, the flow of the Missouri would cause a
backwater on the Sun River. On June 9th and 10th, however, the flood wave of the Sun caused
the Missouri to back up, flooding the Meadowlark Golf Course and the Country Club Addition.
Nearly 3000 people were evacuated from western Great Falls as 10 to 12 feet of water spread over the area.
Advance warning, however, helped prevent any loss of life.

Farther north, the rain continued through Sunday, June 7th. In Glacier National Park, the torrents caused
Divide Creek to spill its banks. Logjams were releasing periodic flash floods. Scores of tourists were
stranded in campgrounds and lodges as all communications and power were knocked out.
Downstream, more than 30 people lost their lives on the Blackfoot Reservation.

Tributaries of the Marias River saw several irrigation dams breech. Along Birch Creek, a flood wave
devastated the Birch Creek Valley with a 20 foot high wall of water destroying any buildings and bridges
in its path. 19 people lost their lives there.

The dam on Lower Two Medicine River also failed releasing a flood wave which claimed 9 more people.

At least 58 people were killed by the torrential rain and the resultant flooding and flash flooding.


:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[VenusRising]

28. Hurricane Fran in 1996.

I was living 4 blocks from the ocean in Myrtle Beach, SC at the time. We got lots of wind and rain damage, but it hit hardest in NC and Virginia.

I will never forget that. It was my first hurricane party, and one of the worst hangovers I ever had. :puke:

[NC_Nurse]

113. Fran was bad here in Chapel Hill...

and even worse in Raleigh. Power out for one - two weeks for many people. Trees and power lines everywhere. Water was contaminated.
Sucked all the way around.

[deadparrot]

29. The Great Flood of 1993.

[bullwinkle428]

48. Yeah, me too (Davenport, Iowa)

That's a baseball stadium completely submerged except for the grandstand left of the bridge.

[nytemare]

30. Charlie, Francis, Jeanne 2004

All together didn't add up to one Katrina, though.

[ForrestGump]

31. Several hurricanes, overseas, on an island (nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide). Also olcanic

activity (ash fall, not streams of lava or anything that radical and hardly a national disaster), and many earthquakes in CA and overseas (but never a really bad one...I somehow managed to be away from Los Angeles for all the big '80s and '90s quakes). Apart from the hurricanes, floods in Los Angeles would be about the only things that I've been through that rated the 'disaster area' level of official recognition. The 'Rodney King' riots of LA, too, but I don't count those as natural unless you see the mudslides, the quakes, the riots, and everything else as Someone's way of saying to Los Angeles "hey, you shouldn't exist."

And the 2000 and 2004 coups, of course. But they were not very natural at all.

[mondo joe]

32. Buffallo's Blizzard of '77. The WTO protests in Seattle.

[GenDem]

41. Yeah, I have some fabulous memories from that one...

...the blizzard of '77, that is. I was a senior in high school, and my parents were stranded 15 miles up the road....for three days. It was one helluva party!

They only let the seniors leave the school-- once the storm cranked up -- so a good many of them came home with me. Lots and lots of beer was consumed.

[bullwinkle428]

44. Damn...beat me to the post with the Buffalo disaster!!

:evilgrin:

[Roon]

33. The winter of 06-07

it wouldn't stop! It just kept on hitting us wave after wave!!

[YankeyMCC]

34. Blizzard of '78

I think that's the closest to disaster I got. It was pretty bad although for me at the time it just meant a lot of time off school. :)

[BarenakedLady]

40. Oh yeah

:thumbsup:

[Nikia]

107. Me too, but I could have become a victim

I was a baby and my parents carried me across the street in white out conditions to neighbors when their house lost power and was getting cold.

[6000eliot]

35. 1972 Hurricane Agnes

NE Pennsylvania. Major flooding! It took about ten years to recover.

[LynneSin]

71. I barely remember Agnes

There was pond near our house that was on Lion's Club property. Mainly used as a skating park in winter and some fishing. The whole thing was devestated from Agnes. And also the Walnut Street bridge from Wormleysburg to Harrisburg was so severly damaged that to this day it is a pedestrian bridge only (it connets both sides to city island in the middle)

[seemunkee]

82. I forgot about that. I was at Boy Scout camp that week

We were up near Sugarload mt. The camp got cut off from the roads so we didn't have any choice but to stick it out. The parents were worried but we made the best of it. We had fun canoeing down the hill from our tents to the mess hall and various other mud related activities. When the storm was over we went to the flood plain below the camp lake and picked up fish for a day.

[6000eliot]

130. Where are you from? That was not far from where I was.

I remember the stuck boyt scouts.

[seemunkee]

142. I was living in Silver Spring MD at that time

[Patiod]

146. I was at Girl Scout camp

but other than lots of rain, it didn't hurt us much. I'm sure canoing to the mess hall must have been fun. Plus guys enjoy mud WAY more than girls do, even at age 12.

I remember my dad and I meeting with business associates in Wilkes-Barre, and seeing the marks on their walls where the flooding had reached...

[cwydro]

36. Hurricane Georges

in 98. And then Wilma in 06. Of course, in 06, we also had Dennis, Katrina and Rita. Not a good year for the Keys. Wilma was the wicked witch though.

But we have all bounced back. The Keys are a very community oriented place. We all stuck together and pulled out of it.

[Karenca]

37. 9/11. nt

[CatholicEdHead]

38. Grand Forks, North Dakota flood of 1997

And all the blizzards that preceded it.

[Sequoia]

83. I was talking about this the other day; how the newspaper

building and presses were flooded but couldn't think of the name of the city. I said, it's the city with a double name; the capital (right?). That was one bad flood.

[CatholicEdHead]

109. Actually, Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota

And Fargo is the cultural capital of North Dakota.

[SmileyBoy]

126. And Grand Forks is the armpit of North Dakota

:7

[kedrys]

39. Martial law in Quebec in 1970

Terrorists (real ones) kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Justice Minister Pierre Laporte. Laporte was eventually murdered by his kidnappers. My aunt worked for him at the time, and the whole province was totally freaked out. Army patrolling the streets and the whole nine yards. :scared:

[Sequoia]

84. Wow, that must've been horrible. I don't remember it at all.

News blackout in SE USA I guess.

[MrSlayer]

42. The 2002 and 2003 NFC Championship games.

Disasters of the greatest proportion. Sick for ages. Still sick.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

43. hurricanes charlie, frances and ivan.

within about 2 weeks of each other. central florida 04 was a weird time.

[gemdem]

45. Close calls with tornadoes over the years...

At least three brushes with the whirlwinds when we lived NE of Indianapolis (in Castleton) about 10 years ago. Then when I was a kid, I watched a tornado level the town of Xenia, Ohio, in April 1974 -- I lived the nearby town of Bellbrook and watched the twister apparently touch down outside our village as it made its way to and through Xenia. The devastation was so bad that then President Nixon came to survey the damage. A few years later we were socked in by the Blizzard of 1978 (just about the last decent snowfall in SW Ohio).

And then I was evacuated from my apartment around 1987 (I'm guessing here) because of a train derailment nearby where some sort of noxious gas was released.

So, some small excitement here and there.

[wildhorses]

46. hurricane hugo

:wow:

[China_cat]

68. me too.

[Rhythm]

139. I remember Hugo... all too well.

Living in Charlotte NC (where i grew up)... i was lucky enough to live on an essentially 'commercial' electric circuit, so we got power back in about 36 hrs. My friends congregated at my house for hot meals and showers for about 2 weeks afterward, though, and they only lived 2 blocks behind me. It took Duke Energy that long to get them back on the grid.

The place where i worked was destroyed, too... 5 trees fell on the building.

[Zomby Woof]

47. 6.8 Nisqually Quake in WA, 2/28/01

And Hurricane Gloria, Virginia Beach VA, September 1985. We had to brace ourselves against the front door to keep it from blowing in, even with a board. The damn wind blew the garage door lock out of the door and right over the car, missing it while it must have projected fairly hard, lol.

[Squatch]

93. The day of that quake, I was scuba diving in Hood Canal.

didn't feel a thing.

[TheMightyFavog]

49. The 2005 Green Bay Packers.

4-12. Worst record since The Inafante Years. :puke:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

50. US Embassy -- Saigon -- 1975

That was pretty bad.

[Sequoia]

86. You were there!!?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

143. Yes, second to last helicopter off

the roof.

I was also supposed to go to the WTC on 9/11, but blew off the appointment.

[bluethruandthru]

51. 9/11 in Washington, DC n/t

[MountainLaurel]

105. Ditto.

Though I was on the other side of the Potomac at the time.

[AlCzervik]

52. blizzard of 78, the "Perfect storm" in 91.

[jobycom]

53. Camille in 69 (I was four), and the Great Austin Bird Death, a couple days ago. nt

[pokerfan]

54. November 19,1996 - Spokane Area Ice Storm

November 19,1996 - Spokane Area Ice Storm

* Up to a half inch of ice deposited or accreted on trees, vehicles, buildings, etc., across much of the populated areas of Spokane and Kootenai counties

* Over 100,000 homes and businesses lost power, some people without power for up to 14 days

* Damage estimated at over 22 million dollars and 4 fatalities


We were without power for seven days. I rigged up a generator to my gas furnace on day 3.

One of the fatalities was a lineman. Apparently someone had hooked up their entire house to a generator without disconnecting it from the grid. A transformer will work in either direction, so he was putting 7200 volts on a distribution line the lineman believed was dead. Can't remember whether the homeowner was prosecuted or not.

The other three fatalities was CO poisoning. Some people were trying to heat their house with a BBQ.

[femmocrat]

55. Johnstown Flood of 1977

Lots of blizzards... way too many to remember the years. I remember a couple when the roads and the schools were closed by the governor. Only emergency personnel were to travel.

Just missed a tornado by a few miles on Dec. 1 of 2006. Did a number on our trees, though.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

56. Spring of 1965--seven tornados hit Twin Cities area

I lived in an outer suburb, and parts of it were heavily damaged. My mom made us kids stay in the basement, but my dad went outside to pick up the golf ball sized hail that was falling. We kept the hailstones in the freezer for years.

[Ghost in the Machine]

57. Hurricane Andrew, right smack in the bullseye in Florida City...

lost everything, but we survived it. When I say survived, I mean SURVIVED... as in "narrowly escaped death"... not "oh, we left town and came back a week later"... I know the feeling of loss and devastation, and I feel for anyone else who ever has to endure it...

PEACE!

Ghost

[rustydog]

58. May 18th 1980...Mt. St. Helens. KABLOOEY!

[WindRavenX]

59. The Queens/Astoria blackout in NYC last summer

THAT SUCKED ASS. 96+ in my SO's apartment-- we woke up in pools of nasty sweat :puke: :puke: :puke:

[reformedrepub]

60. 9/11 Lower Manhattan

I spent ten hours trying to find a way out of where I was...

[politicat]

61. Born during the 1976 Midwest ice storm and blizzard....

and it gets better from there. There was a serious set of tornadoes during my first spring and summer that caused a lot of damage. My father got TDYed to clean up some industrial disaster in India when I was 2, and so we went. (Not Bophal, but similar, if not so nasty.) (I'm a Navy brat, so we spent a lot of time globe trotting, and when we weren't, then we were either in Indiana, where my parents are both from, or in Florida, where my mother's family wintered, or Arizona, where my father's family went.)

We missed the Sunshine skyway bridge disaster by only the grace of an ear infection -- my temporary pediatrician in Florida wouldn't let me fly with my ears in bad shape, so we delayed our flight back across the Atlantic for a few days until the antibiotics caught up with me. We would have been on the bridge had we been scheduled normally. Our flights always went out of Tampa, and my grandparents live in Port Charlotte. (of course, we would have been Northbound, so it would have been nasty, but not probably deadly... probably.) (And yes, my grandmother survived Charley without much damage... she lost a piece of siding and a bottle brush bush. The FEMA tarps they nailed on her roof did more damage than the actual 'cane did... Leave it to FEMA....)

More tornadoes the summer I was 4, which was my second Midwest summer; also, the summer I was 5.

Major flooding the spring I was 6 in Indiana.

The one year (my 7th-8th) we were in Florida for hurricane season, it was almost non-existent. (Go figure.)

Severe flooding and heat the first summer I was in Arizona; also the 4th. The base we were assigned to - Yuma Marine Corps Air Station - got 17 inches of rain in two storms less than 10 days apart. That the city survived....

Went to university in California in 1993; had a scholarship to a nice, private uni in Thousand Oaks, not terribly far from Northridge. Missed the big quake itself, but we were due back in school the day after the quake, so my friends and I drove through a LOT of aftershocks and a lot of damage (and damn KROQ for reporting that the 101 was in great shape when it most assuredly was NOT...) . Was on a ladder in the theater hanging lights a few days later during the nastier of the aftershocks....

Moved to Colorado in fall, 1998. In spring, 1999, BAD flooding in Colorado Springs. Floods took out a few bridges. Made national news.

Quiet since then, until the last three weeks, when all the snows of hell broke loose and dropped on Denver and points east. And there's more coming tomorrow....

[Rabrrrrrr]

62. The North Tower of the WTC fell into my office - does that count?

[ironflange]

118. The whole thing?

Sounds like a pretty nice office.

[Rabrrrrrr]

119. No,clearly not the whole thing.

:eyes:

Jesus.

[ironflange]

121. Sorry, I was kidding

I should have known better to make light of that. My apologies.

[Rabrrrrrr]

145. s'alright.

No harm done. It pissed me off, though.


But taken literally, what I said was kind of funny.

:hi:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

63. I lost heat in the Baltimore "Presidents Day" snowstorm in 1979

The apartment building ran out of oil. There was a curfew due to some looting downtown, so I was stuck in my apartment. I kept the oven going...

[Ewellian]

64. Woodstock 1999

[Kerrytravelers]

104. Welcome to DU, Ewellian!

:hi:

[Rhythm]

140. yeah... that WAS a mess...

i was working for a temp agency and was assigned out there...
glad i skipped working the last night.

i went back the day after, and the area i had been working at was one of the areas where the trucks had been burned, and the whole area was destroyed.

[opiate69]

65. Hurricane Gloria, Connecticut, 1987

Also, the blizzard of '78 and the Nisqually earthquake.

[LeftyMom]

66. The '88 and '96 floods, plus other minor floods in Sacramento, and some too-close tornados

at my Grandma's place in Kentucky when I was a kid. That's about it.

My family's pretty lucky. Most of us are in Northern California and we've never lost anything to flood or fire, and our biggest loss to earthquake was Grandma's bedroom TV at her place in San Leandro, which took a header in the Loma Prieta quake in '89.

[XemaSab]

127. Oh, I was on Sacto during the '96 flood

A block from the Sacramento River. That was nerve wracking. :(

[BikeWriter]

67. The Texas City Disaster of 1947

[Bridget Burke]

69. That's considered the "worst industrial accident in US history"....

Right next door to Galveston, whose 1900 Storm was the country's worst natural disaster. In human lives, at least.

I didn't arrive in Texas until 1953. But I witnessed Hurricanes Carla & Alicia. And Tropical Storm Allison of 2001 (there was a previous Allison in 1989)--that caused major flooding in Houston. Both hurricanes impressed me mightily, but did me no harm. Since I live in the Heights area, Allison didn't affect me directly. And Houston's flood waters did subside quickly.



More pix here: www.forum-polonia-houston.com/Events/2001/Allison/allison.htm

[ironflange]

120. I was in Houston a few years ago for Xmas

The weather was predicted to drop below freezing one night. For me, that means I have to zip up my sweater, but by God, the way people were screaming and yelling you'd think that a comet was about to hit the city. It was quite amusing.

[BikeWriter]

133. Any time it freezes in Houston that is just cause for panic!!!!!!1111

[BikeWriter]

132. Cool pictures. Yes'm, we lived on the 200 block of Baystreet...

...in Texas City during the Disaster. The two story house we were in was a total loss. We all survived, but my Sainted Mother bore the scars of digging us four children out of the rubble to her grave.
Dad had been fighting the ship fires, but had left to fuel some construction equipment as he was contracted to do. He came for us through the conflagration in a fuel tank truck, and took us out of the area, then returned.

[LynneSin]

70. Three Mile Island - lived less than 15miles from the plant

We were all instructed to go to homeroom (it was during 6th period - Mr. Segro's class) and then one bus at a time they called us to get on our bus and head home (to minimize the time we were outside). Even the buses we willing to make extra stops along the way to ensure the kids got home right away.

I had the entire week off from school and it was an exceptionally lovely week in spring - but we had to play inside everyday. Oh, and our car was packed already in case we had to book out of there to grandfather's house up north.

[Patiod]

147. My dad was playing golf on a course right next to TMI

the morning of the disaster. Whatever course it was, you could see the towers from most of it.

He was pretty freaked out when he heard about what happened in his car on the way home.

A friend of mine was at college at Elizabethtown, and I think they closed the school.

[kwassa]

72. Also Northridge earthquake and the riots in 1992

Got to see some rioters trying to break into an electronics store, a whole variety of things on fire, and got thrown out of bed by the earthquake.

[crim son]

73. The Ice Storm of 1998.

We lived in the woods and had no power for five days. I cooked on a canister of propane.

[mainegreen]

90. That one was ... fun. I got to shower at the highschool!

It was crazy there, with people sleeping in the halls. But I'll never forget the sounds of trees exploding non stop out in the woods.

Eery.

[crim son]

91. Wow. The trees were exploding?

The birches, probably. They were hit the worst. Thank god I didn't have to hike over to George Stevens' Academy to shower! We had a small generator and turned it on to get clean water. Funny to think we were both enduring it. :hi:

[RebelOne]

74. About 10 hurricanes in South Florida.

I grew up in Miami until moving here to the Atlanta area in 1989. I have been in many hurricanes. And here in Georgia, I live in Tornado Alley. Some have come a little too close for comfort where I am.

[raccoon]

75. Hurricane Gracie, late September 1959.

My siblings and I were sick with some childhood ailment.

I remember the wind whining about the house and every now and then, I'd hear a tree being uprooted. I guess if I'd been older and not sick, I'd have been more scared. Took ages to get all that mess cleaned up.

We were out of power for three days. And we were inland! Probably about 50 miles inland as the crow flies.

Gracie made landfall at low tide.

[baldguy]

76. Last October: 6-8 inches of snow in Buffalo

Doesn't sound like a lot, does it? But heavy, wet snow at that time of year brought down a lot of tree limbs. And Buffalo has a lot of trees.

My basement flooded. I was without power or heat for a week. Others were out for two weeks. Many people had to leave their homes to stay with friends or relatives. Many businesses were closed for a week.

People are STILL cleaning up.

[youthere]

77. Iowa flood of 93..

[Bread and Circus]

78. I was going to UCSC during Loma Prieta earthquake,

I was living in LA during riots and Northridge earthquake and
I was living in Auburn Maine during 1998 Ice Storm (first real winter
I had ever lived through, not a good start.) Disasters seem
to follow me.

[noonwitch]

79. My dad outdrove a tornado once when we were all riding in the car

We lived in Temperance, MI at the time, and were on our way back from a weekend at Harsen's Island. We were almost home and could see the tornado coming-my mom kept begging my dad to pull over so we could get in the ditch, but he said, hell no, why scare the kids that way when I can outdrive it? He did, but she was freaked.

[seemunkee]

81. Hurricane Bob on Cape Cod 1991

On vacation with my wife and kids, 2 and 4, my uncle, my mom, my brother, his wife and two kids, 5 and 3. My wife couldn't sleep and was listening to the radio one night and heard that the hurricane was coming. We figured by the time we got to the bridge to get off the cape the storm would be at full strength so we went to the church that was being used as an evacuation shelter.
Spent the day at the church and went back to our beach cottages that night. No damage to where we were staying but there was no electricity and no water(needed power for the pumps). We had a gas stove and got ice so we had food, the owner of the cottages brought a barrel of seawater for flushing the toilets and ran a generator for drinking water an hour each night. After 2 days we gave up but my brother stayed. The night we left power was restored. Thankfully we didn't suffer any harm and have a shared family experience.

[SoyCat]

85. Hurricane Opal was the only bad hurricane that didn't give us enough warning to evacuate. I'm

thankful that we had the means to evacuate before Ivan and Dennis.

[Arugula Latte]

88. 1989 S.F. Bay Area Earthquake

I was driving in Berkeley and my car tipped to the left. I thought I'd gotten two flat tires. Then I saw the streetlights swaying towards the middle of the street and back. I pulled over, like most people. A woman in a mini van filled with kids who was behind me didn't understand why I pulled over and started honking. I remember seeing cars crushed by falling bricks and the fires springing up in San Francisco as I drove up through the Berkeley Hills.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

89. You know that movie Red Dawn? Yeah - I was C THomas Howell!

I still get night terrors
:scared:

[jmowreader]

95. The Mt. St. Helens eruption

Funny war story: I got sent to Spokane the day after the eruption to buy air filters for cop cars. When your sister's married to the chief of police, you do weird shit like that. Anyway, I helped this Army guy who was stationed at Fort Lewis and his soldier wife whose parents lived in Spokane to change their oil and get new filters so they could get back to base. The Army guy departed with the usual "maybe we'll see each other again." Two years later they were my instructors at MI school at Fort Devens.

I also did Hurricanes Fran and Floyd in North Carolina.

[ironflange]

116. Me too, St. Helens

However, by the time the cloud got to Calgary, there was only enough to see on the cars. Very light dusting, but it was undoubtedly the real thing.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

96. I felt the big Alaska earthquake.

There was the Columbus Day Storm.

And we got ash from St. Helens.

[YDogg]

97. three hurricanes passed through my county in 2004

lost one 30-40 ft tree, but otherwise, no major damage, thankfully.

[ceile]

98. Hurricane Alecia 1983

And droughts EVERY summer.

[Mz Pip]

101. Loma Prieta Earthquake

scary stuff. When we saw the pictures of the pancaked freeway we really freaked out. We could see the fires in San Francisco from our street across the bay. All four of us slept in the same room that night, though we really didn't get much sleep.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Beaverhausen]

102. Earthquakes, riots, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards

This is from living in Los Angeles, Kansas and Philadelphia.

I think the worst is the humidity of an east coast summer day. Bleech!

[Kerrytravelers]

103. The San Francisco Earthquake.

My teacher was on the bridge, but survived it. He had his kids in the car with him at the time.

I was at home. The water in the sink splashed on the floor, the chandelier bounced off the ceiling and our sectional couch separated. A large metal filing cabinet fell right next to my mom at work. She felt the wind gust but wasn't hit. My dad was delivering mail and a large tree branch fell, but he was far enough back that he was perfectly safe.

[musiclawyer]

106. Oakland Hills Fire

Scary

[XemaSab]

128. No shit.

I was in Marin County at the time, but had I been in my old house I probably would have evacuated. :(

[JVS]

108. Hands Across America

[idgiehkt]

110. a tornado and a blizzard.

I think that's about it.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

111. Ice Storm of '98 in ME and Charlie, Frances, Jeanne of '04 in FL

Ice Storm was way worse than those hurricanes I think.

[fudge stripe cookays]

112. I have been INCREDIBLY lucky.

The closest I ever came to disaster was being 15 and living in Austin during this:

http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/?SecID=278&ArID=162452

Fortunately, we did not live near Shoal Creek, and had moved further away from Quail Creek a few years before. But I remember the summer of 1981 so well....EVERY DAY it just RAINED and RAINED and RAINED. When the sun finally came out, I felt like getting down on my knees and thanking the big guy. I seriously thought we were going to have to build an ark.

Hurricane Rita passed just to the east of us in 2005 as it trailed off in North Texas. We had crap flying ALL over our backyard. Lost power for a day or so, but nothing major.

[leftofthedial]

115. the reigns of the bush cabal

ronnie raygun, george the first and george the lesser

worst disaster in the history of the world

although I guess it's really more of an unnatural disaster.

[Telly Savalas]

122. The Toronto Raptors

[Bullwinkle925]

123. June 10, 1958 - Tornado in El Dorado Kansas ....

1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in SF/Oakland Bay Area

[evirus]

124. two disasters

1)that black out a few summers ago(MI)
2)the Bush presidency(on going)

[driver8]

125. Northridge Earthquake and LA Riots for me, too.

When the riots erupted, I had just moved to Los Angeles. I was staying with friends until I found a place and a job. I had just driven my friends to the airport that morning -- I was by myself and I didn't know anyone else in the city.


That was some scary shit.

[Reverend_Smitty]

129. A few

Hurricane Andrew, I was living in Boca Raton at the time so we missed the eye but still some scary shit

Hurricane Floyd, It was windy and rainy but hey we got the day off from school and they canceled a Springsteen concert I was had tickets for.

Blizzard of 96, we got 28 inches of snow at my house

and a few other hurricanes over the years when I was living in Florida. We were living on the beach when I think Opal hit but it was a bit north of us so all we got was some street flooding. Fortunately I've been rather lucky when it comes to near misses with natural disasters (knocks on wood)

[haf216]

131. Mine are all Hurricanes,

Andrew - After it hit Fl. it came to La. (did not get as bad, but it was not good.)

Katrina - did not actually hit my town, but we are still living with the "aftermath" ( sorry very tired and can not think of a better word.}

and Rita.

Edit: way to tired to be typing.

[SPKrazy]

134. -.-.

Lafayette is an interesting city

was down there at Thanksgiving

I know that you have had a lot of evacuees there from Katrina

my Republican MIL lives there

:crazy:

[haf216]

136. Lafayette is interesting,

one of the better places to live in the state. I lived in Lake Charles for about 6 months. Never again. Oh and yeah we have lots of those Republicans down here, but after Katrina some people really started to think about the job the President is doing (or not doing).

[Manifestor_of_Light]

135. Tropical Storm Allison

West side, didn't get flooded, just stayed home.

Hurricane Carla, 1961, lost one shingle off house.

Hurricane Alicia, August 1983, I was in California watching fences blow apart, on CNN from my hotel room.

Three Mile Island, 1979 -- no wait, my disaster came a day later in March 1979 -- my first marriage!!!

[NoPasaran]

137. Austin's Memorial Day Flood of 1981

"Hundred-year storms" falling on ground already saturated by several days of rain caused flash floods that killed 13 people. http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/watershed/floodhistory.htm

[enigmatic]

138. Clevo: 4th Of July Storm, 1969

http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/opinion/columns/pulse-of-the-city/the-pulse-of-the-city--the-storm-of-change

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

I was 6; I remember getting home from the park to watch the fireworks because of the weather bulletins w/ my Mother and brrothers when it hit. We just walked inside when a window shattered in our back porch; I instantly became a basket case for the rest of the night. I remember the storms going on all night it seems; lots of lightning and incredible winds. The damage was pretty bad althrough town; we didn't get the electricty back on for 10 days, i think..

[Zavulon]

144. Hurricane Belle in Cape Cod many years ago.

Some vacation THAT turned out to be.

[NewWaveChick1981]

148. Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Floyd.

Hugo was bad. No power for days and trees down everywhere. We were skirted by Floyd, so we only lost power for one day, but the winds did a lot of damage to the trees. The house next door to us lost part of its roof.

Been through other hurricanes, but nothing like that.

[Courtesy Flush]

149. Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, and Rita (and others whose names I forget).

[azmouse]

150. Hurricane Agnes in 1972