Have you or anyone you know ever been through..

[Kitty 34]

I have an ex SIL (if that counts) who survived the Big Thompson flood out in Colorado. She was rescued from the roof of the house she was visiting at the time. She had her 2 month old DD with her.

 

[Lil_Tink]

I was in the 'Big Quake" In seattle washington, years ago. It was 6.8, I was in school in my class room. All I remeber was everything was shaking violently and we all hid under our desks as told. Our teacher was freaking out and hid under a students desk with them. Anyways, we were only 8 so didnt really understand what was going on we thought a sumo wrestler was on the roof or a huge truck was going by.

 

[Lil_Tink]

Yes, earthquakes in Hawaii and recently in the Seattle area, too.

Hurricanes in Hawaii and Virginia plus a tornado here in Virginia, too. We lived in Tulsa for a year and ironically never experienced a tornado there that touched down, but when we lived in Hampton, VA a tornado ripped thru our apartment complex in a suburban area. That was scary.

On that note that's why I am always prepared for emergencies for our family. You just never know...

I almost was in the hurrifcane back on Oahu in 1992, but came to Oahu the day after it.

 

[TayBai2]

We survived Hurricane Katrina. We had several families staying with us during the storm, afterwards no could leave to get to their homes, neighbors had tractors and chainsaws trying to cut paths for people. We were without power for 21 days thank goodness for a generator, but people were trying to steal the generators and gas. Our neighbors had a sign that said "Looters will be shot, welcome power people and fema!" We were lucky compared to most people no major damage to our home. There is several people that I work with lost everything.

 

[Lil_Tink]

My friend John was in a flash flood.. one day he came to school soaking wet and we asked him what happened. Apparently he was riding his bike to school and his I.D (we wear them around our necks on a lanyard) go attached to his bike handle, the water came rushing down the street and dragging him one way, his bike the other chocking him.. Luckily he survived.

 

[Amlee]

In 02 we had 2 tornados to come through here. Several homes blown away and 12 dead. In 93 and 96 we had a blizzard and ice storm that knocked out power and water for over a week. We also get earthquakes here. Not as bad as other places, but hey a 4.9 in Alabama sure is something to talk about!

 

[Beth76]

My home has never been affected by a natural disaster, but DH & I were in Mexico when Wilma hit. It was horrible. The hurricane lasted for 2 days and building we were in barely made it through. Even for 4 days afterward we had no idea when we were going to get home.

 

[Virgo10]

Hurricane Carol waaay back in 1954. I was pretty young but I can still remember the sound of the trees falling. We didn't have electricity for a couple of days.

The Blizzard of '78. In the Plymouth, MA area we already had about 2 feet of snow on the ground. When that hit we got another 2 to 3 FEET on top of it!! What a mess. We were luckier than most though, we never lost our power.

Super Thunderstorm of 1999. Lightning strike in our front yard, winds to 60 mph and GOLF BALL size hail... the biggest I've ever seen. Our cars had pings all over the paint. It also ruined most of our plants. I've got that storm on video tape.

 

[barkley]

the '89 san francisco earthquake (7.1 magnitude). was working in richmond and the 3 story building just shook (you could hear the file cases tipping over). we were evacuated and told to go home. drove home to napa and heard about the cypress collapse and the bay bridge collapse as i was driving over the carquinez bridge

had a co-worker who had just gotten off the cypress as the quake hit-he was one of the lucky ones. another co-worker was at her sons to celebrate the birth of her first grandchild-the quake hit and her son threw himself over the cradle. his house was ultimatly red-tagged but everyone emerged uninjured.

days and days of televised rescue efforts-very sad.

also remember the oakland hills fires-watching the smoke pour over the hills into the carquinez straights. several co-workers lost their homes and pets

 

[mickeyfan2]

My aunt was struck by lightening.

 

[Shugardrawers]

Very near to ground zero for Mt St. Helen's eruption in 1980. It rained sand for hours and at 9am was black as night. My parents stayed calm so I don't recall being too scared. We had expected it for weeks so we knew there wouldn't be any lava, just ash. Still, an amazing sight.

My best friend and my DD survived Katrina, luckily both had homes to go back to. BF never left her home but it was brick several miles off the beach. DD lives in a stone house that is near the beach but very well protected. Even with all the devestation there I can't get BF to move. She's lived there all her life and won't leave. We left Biloxi and got here to VA just weeks after hurricane Isabel came through here. There was still plenty of damage to be seen. Our home in Biloxi no longer exists. We lived just a couple blocks off the beach. I so loved that house.

 

[phamton]

I've been through 4 hurricanes in Orlando but my worst experience was with a tornado in 1988.

We had been under a tornado warning in Amarillo, Texas. Watches and warnings are not too unusual there but when we got the warning my husband and I grabbed the kids and took them to our private business that had a basement. We waited in the basement there until the warning was called off. My husband drove the van with the kids and I followed in my smaller car to go home. About 10 blocks from home, I hit some flooding on the road that I couldn't see until I was in it. My little car started floating. I jumped out and waded to the van. We drove home and put the kids to bed. We have 5 kids, whose ages at the time were 6 months, 2 years, twins age 7, and oldest daughter age 13 years. We got all the younger kids to bed and asked our oldest to babysit while we went down the road to push my car out of the road. We figured we'd be back in about 15 minutes.

We got to my car and pushed it out of the road and heard tornado sirens going off. We rushed into the 7-11 store by my car and they said a tornado just hit our subdivision. Then the rain started pouring down. We could not drive the 10 blocks to our house because the road was now completely flooded and other cars were floating. We tried to go a different way which took us over 45 minutes to get home. We drove in from the backside of our subdivision. There were already police blockades and they weren't letting anyone in because of all the tornado damage. We frantically explained that our 5 kids were alone so they gave us a pass to go in.

The house behind us was flattened and the whole area was a mess. We ran in and found all of our kids hiding in the laundry room. My daughter had heard the tornado and grabbed the baby, told the twins to get the toddler, and they ran into the laundry room. Everyone was fine but scared. The kids were afraid that the tornado had gotten us.

Later we heard from the neighbors that they watched the tornado come right down almost on top of our house and then dipped down and got the house across the alley from us. That house was flattened to the ground. (No one was home there.) Many homes were destroyed but no one was killed or even seriously injured. Some homes had pieces of camper trailers and boats on their roofs and even a trampoline. Our trampoline was intact but our fence was destroyed. It picked up one of our bicycles, turned it around, and set it down, facing a different way with it still standing up. Very strange. I had seen dozens tornadoes while growing up in West Texas and later in the panhandle of Texas. I even watched twin tornadoes from my front yard as a teenager. When we saw tonadoes in the distance, we usually got our cameras and took pictures with no fear. I never really feared them until that day. I gained a healthy respect for tornadoes that day and realized that I could have lost all of my 5 children at once.

 

[4greatboys]

We were here for Hurricane Alicia back in 1983. It was a Cat 3. Lots of high wind and rain but luckily we sustained little damage to our house.
We also had TS Allison hang out over the Houston area raining for a very long period of time. Pretty much the whole city was underwater.
Lastly I consider the trip "out" of Houston for Wilma a disaster. Stuck on the freeway for over 20 hours (only ended up being 1 hour from my house).

 

[AmazingGrace]

We're Katrina survivors.

 

[Amlee]

I don't know how I forgot Opal!!! I'm 300 miles in land from Mobile Bay. When Hurricane Opal came ashore and made her way inland. She passed over us at still a Cat 3. We had major houses gone. Out of power for almost a week. I will never forget those winds!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Hurricanes Hugo, Jeanne, and Frances

 

[SC Minnie]

Another Hurricane Hugo survivor here. Would never want to go through that again.

Me too. I was living in Florence at the time and even that far away from Charleston looked like a war zone. I never want to go through something like that again. Whenever we have hurricane warning going up the people that lived through it here (there were hurricane force winds as far inland as Charlotte) go into panic mode. People new to the area think we are crazy.

 

[mrsgus06]

Another hurricane Hugo person here! I lived on James Island (close to Folly Beach) but went to Jedburg. All night long I listened to the church bells across the street ringing because the wind was outrageous. Now, everytime they tell us to evacuate, I relocate to a totally different state.

 

[nealymouse]

Being from Maine we get blizzards and Ice Storms.

 

[Zandy595]

Been right in the middle of Hurricanes Frances '04, Jeanne '04 and Wilma '05. Not looking forward to this coming hurricane season. We live in a newer house and didn't have any damage to our house, but we lost 3 trees.

Also the Blizzard of '77, western NY.