Has anyone been in natural disaster?

[keefer51]

When i lived in Nashville, Tennessee I heard allot of tornado warnings. My ears always perked up because i was fascinated with them. I never saw anything just dark clouds and winds. I was working at the newspaper in the basement when i heard that warning on the radio. I thought it was another test. So stupid me i go running outside behind the building. There were four of us. The other two never saw one either. As i went outside i heard the siren. I was like a little kid i stood very near the door to get back in. I looked up and saw the billboard across the way explode into pieces. It was then i figured i had enough. What happened next only took a couple of seconds. The wind slammed us against the building at the same time my hand was on the door to open it. Someone else was helping and we were able to get in. We looked a sight. We all were trying to be cool about it but i got to tell you folks i needed to change my underwear on that one! I was told it was a F4.

[okarol]

Sylmar Quake: When I was 17 years old in 1971 an earthquake struck at 6:00:55 a.m. PST on the morning of February 9, 1971. The earthquake that rocked the northern San Fernando Valley, near Sylmar measured magnitude 6.6 on the Richter scale. I woke up when my bed moved across the room and slammed into my sister's bed, then both beds slid back across the room. I heard my mom yell out "Earthquake!" - a word I had never heard before. Most of the damage was north of us, but many homes were cracked and windows were broken. The quake claimed 65 lives and caused more than half a billion dollars in damage, including the destruction of two hospitals, a freeway interchange and the Lower Van Norman Dam (which was in danger of flooding us.)

The Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, 1994 at 4:30:55 AM in Northridge, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. The earthquake had a "moderate" moment magnitude of 6.7, but the ground acceleration was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America. Sixty-one people died as a result of the earthquake and over 8,000 injured. In addition, the earthquake caused an estimated 9 billion dollars in damage. Damage was also caused by fire and landslides. I woke up and heard my husband yelling, "It's the big one!!" as my kids slept through the whole thing. I lost a few dishes (we lived in Pasadena) but my mom and sister's homes in the Valley looked as though a giant had picked them up and shook the entire contents on to the floor.

I feel lucky and blessed that I was okay in both earthquakes. I am always aware the the next one might be the worst.

[Chicken Little]

I was in Burbank for the Northridge quake.  It threw both of us out of bed and into the wall on the other side of the room and it broke a lot of windows and dishes.  It also loosened the rod iron staircase in our townhouse, which was suspended above the living room.  It shook like jello when we ran downstairs. 

I got to see lots of nekkid neighbors that day.  I always wear PJs now.    

[glitter]

I was in the path of Charlie, Jeanne and Francis in 2004- one ripped of the front of my house one ripped off the back- we had a twister touch down on our land and broke over 100 trees in half while we were in the garage. I felt the roof pick up and set back down about three a.m. Watching Katrina was terrible.

[Adam_W]

A little over a year ago, a tornado hit our house while me and my parents were inside. I was studying the weather radar, because I'm interested in tracking storms, and I know that a super cell was moving right over us. Right as it came over, a tornado warning was issued for our county. I went and woke my parents up to let them know what was going on, and we got our storm supplies ready in the central bathroom. Just a few minutes later we heard this loud whooshing sound. It didn't sound like a freight train to me (possibly because I've been around a lot of freight trains and I'm familiar with their sound), but it sounded like a rushing waterfall. We darted into the bathroom, and we could here things crashing and breaking outside. It ended within 15 to 20 seconds, and we discovered that two 40 to 50 foot pine trees in our yard had been ripped out of the ground, half of our roof was gone, and we had power lines laying across the remains of the roof. It turned out the tornado was an F1 with wind of at least 100mph. I don't like to think of the result if it had been any bigger. Now that I'm on home dialysis, I've put together a "tornado emergency kit" in case we have another one while I'm on the machine and I have to get off really quick (clamp, cut, and run). Despite all this, I didn't become afraid of tornadoes, in fact, I became even more interested in studying them. I still hope I never have a repeat of April 2, 2006.

Adam

[Sluff]

I was driving an 18 wheeler across Ohio and it seemed I was staying ahead of the storm pretty well. I was on Rte 30 going east and then headed northeast towards Akron getting ready to go east on I-80 into Pennsylvania. The radio came alive someone from the Akron area was trying to warn all the truckers of a  funnel cloud siting near where I was. It was windy but not that bad at first, I ignored this guy on the radio who by now was in a panic and heading to his basement so I continued east onto I-80 it had gotten real calm. Now I had been driving for a number of years and have driven through a lot of storms and have seen a lot of natural disasters but this time I knew I was in trouble because it was just to calm, I was in the eye of this tornado and I knew it. It was really not as bad as I thought at the moment, so I decide to stop in Youngstown for the night. I was stopped maybe 5 minutes and then came the tornado. I survived while staying in my truck and had no damage at all. When it was all done I decided to head her east into Pennsylvania.

The parking lot was a mess with trucks laying on there side, I pulled out onto the highway and as I was just entering Pennsylvania I saw lots of trucks and cars in the ditches, I even saw 1 truck where the trailer was sitting upright on the ground but all his trailer axles and wheels were missing. That freaked me out. Anyway i kept going and had no problems.

I went through another one while riding my motorcycle and was real lucky too but it was not as exciting as the truck story.

[livecam]

Hurricane Agnes in 1972 caused major flooding in my hometown back in NY.  We didn't live in an affected area but I was involved in disaster communications and in getting one of the local TV stations up and running with a makeshift microphone and camera from their transmitter.

Typhoon Tip struck the island of Guam when I was living there in 1979.  I drove around during the height of the storm just to experience what a typhoon/hurricane was like, very surreal.

The Northridge California earthquake in 1994 and it's little brothers in the Indio/inland empire areas.  I felt the first one at home in Tehachapi at about 5 something AM and then experienced it's brother and the aftershocks later at work in Hollywood.  I was working video in transmission control that morning and each aftershock would make the equipment racks shake and sound like a freight train coming through the building.

My biggest and most profound natural disaster...was kidney failure.  A little flood, typhoon, or earthquake can't compare.

[boxman55]

1989 Loma Prieta Earth Quake Bay Area Leaving Hayward heading back to Sacramento bay bridge collapses along with the Oakland freeway for some reason that day I decided to head home via Tracy....Boxman