Have you ever been caught in a natural disaster? Such as a tornado, earthquake, flood, hurricane?

Question

What happened?

Texas gal here, we get tornados a lot..I've been lucky so far but you just never know...

Answer 1

Yes, when I was thirteen my family went to visit relatives in Ruskin Heights, MO. (it's a suburb of Kansas city) from Southern California. On our second night there a tornado stuck. I was with my dad and two cousins in the car on our way to pick up another cousin. When we pulled in we saw the tornado a couple of miles away. My dad drove about 80 miles an hour in the other direction. He backed onto a driveway to see which way it was headed then. Dad said it looked like it was over my cousins house. He said no, it was to far over. When it disappeared in the distance we went back to the house where my mom, two brothers, my cousins wife, and two young sons were. We could only get within a couple of blocks of it. The entire neighborhood was destroyed. By the time we had run to house no one was there. A huge Air Force base was close by. They had sent out rescue crews so quickly everyone was evacuated before we could get there. My dad found everyone about 8 hours later at the base. Around 70 people died. Most in the grocery store. It was a long and terrifying night. No one in my family was injured except my mom had a gash on her leg. We were lucky we were in our car because my cousins was destroyed. We had to drive home.
I've been in several earthquakes in California, but nothing can compare to that tornado.

Answer 2

Our family did come very close to being in a tornado years
ago when our children were small. It was a freak storm that
came through on a working day when children were in
school. And had we not moved out of that area where the
tornado touched down, we'd have seen our children trapped
inside the gradeschool they'ed been going to. It was leveled
with many children severely hurt. Two of our friends children
were.
Personally it has been earthquakes I've been in. A couple
in northern California. And two in the Portland, Oregon
area. They make you feel so very helpless, and there is no
where to run to guarantee your safety. My first experience was in San Jose, California. I was home alone and in the
bathroom of all places. And I couldn't run anywhere. All I
could do was hold onto a drainboard and press against the
outside wall with the other hand. And the house rolled first
one way, like it was sitting on top of logs, and then it rolled
back to the left again and settled down. We were about an
hours drive away from the epicenter. I was never so glad
when all of the movement stopped. We experienced one
more while living there. But it was not as unsettling.
The third time was in NE Portland and we were in bed
and woke up with a start, thinking the other had been hitting
the bed or something with heavy force. Then we sat up
and saw the bed move to the left and then back to the right.
It was much more upsetting as there was more movement
or there was more force in the movement. And we heard
the house making noises from it moving on its' foundation.
That was very scarey.
And my last experience I was in still another house and
I was home alone, and walking from the kitchen to the
laundry room, and I noticed through the patio door the back-
yard apple tree was swaying and the bird feeder was
whipping back and forth really fast. I thought something
big and heavy had climbed up into the tree. Like the
raccoons or oppossums that came into the yard sometimes.
But then I felt the floor roll under me. Like rolling logs. And
I just stood still and watched the tree outside and feeling
the house move and kind of a howling noise from the
earth below. And I worried that the floor might tear apart
and I'd fall into a crevice in the earth. I think that was worse
than being in the bed. This was outside of the Portland area
where the fault line is. So that was the last area I'd expect
to feel an earthquake. They've had a few more reported in
Portland, but we no longer live there. We live across the
mighty Columbia River and so far haven't felt anything over
here. And I am so very thankful for that fact.

Answer 3

I live in tornado alley, too, like CJ. We have had many severe tornados here, fortunately I have not personally been in one, and hope to never be. The worst disaster I have been in was the ice storm two weeks ago, when our area lost power, some people for more than a week, and a lot of trees and damage to homes. We lost a couple of trees and had roof damage to our porch, and there are still huge piles of brush everywhere that need to be cleaned up and burned, but we were lucky, many people lost a lot more than that.

I am surprised CJ didn't mention the ice storm that SW Missouri and Springfield suffered las January, we were there a few days later and 40 miles out of Spgfld and all the way into and over the city was such devastating damage to the trees that it looked like a war zone. I don't think there was a yard in the whole city that did not have trees down or severe tree damage, plus damage to the homes.

In both cases, the whole area was declared a disaster area.

Answer 4

all of the above
hurricane
when we lived in Virginia, we caught the tail end of a hurricane - mind you, we lived in Norfolk which has a huge Navy shipyard, so we were on the coast. Our house was up on a hill and the hurricane caused so much rain that our street was flooded and people were water skiing down the street

flood
the town I live in has a fairly well known river - the Iroquois - running next to it. when we get torential rains, the river can't take it fast enough and our town floods in places. we had to evacuate our house one time because the water was clear to the top of the basement and so flooded the furnace ducts. the gas and electric had to be shut off. luckily it didn't get into the house itself, but it was very close.

earthquake
we had a mild tremor in our town one time - I thought at first that it was a train derailment since I only lived 4 blocks from the tracks, but when the dishes started rattling in the cupboards, I knew something was wrong and was really scared. it only lasted about 5 minutes, but when you're so scared you can't think and don't know what to do, 5 minutes is a very long time.

tornado
I live in Illinois - need I say more
I have spent lots of time in the basement waiting out the tornado watches. last year we had one that took our garden shed and a lot of shingles off the house. Talk about scared !!
I was just glad it didn't take the whole roof !!

if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all !!

Answer 5

I grew up in South Florida, so lots of hurricanes. The worst of course was Andrew until of course Katrina . I have been with Red Cross since that day, it is now 15+ years. I travel to disasters across the country as a client casework supervisor. I am a local as well as national volunteer I have been to ground 0 after 9/11, the tornado in Alabama that went through the school, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, participated in the Hurricane Recovery Program, I am a Disastor action Team coordinator, assistant co-chairwoman with our chapter . I answer home fire calls, I am available 24/7/365. I have seen so much devastation and death in these years. So much homelessness due to disasters, I thank God everyday for what I have, it can be taken away so quickly.

Answer 6

Several earthquakes, the worst being Northridge '94, but nothing else. Lived in Simi Valley, about 10 miles from the epicenter. My cat, sleeping on my chest, leaped off me, which woke me up. Things were quiet. Then, a little jolt. 'neat, a small quake' I thought. BOOM! Violent rocking, couldn't get out of bed, stuff falling--'it's the big one, I'm dead'. For 20-40 seconds the room seemed to shift back-and-forth 18 inches.As it settled down, the power went out. 4:30 a.m. no lights anywhere and the house is so messy I could barely find my way out. Had to wait for sunup to start cleanup. The cat didn't come back till next day, 24 hours or so later. What a mess. The power wasn't restored until sundown. The house and I were okay, clean up took days. I like Minnesota!

Answer 7

I have been through 2 tornadoes. One was on the motorcycle coming back through Kentucky.We were trying to get home to central Indiana and kept riding since there was no rain even though the skies were getting darker. When the rain hit, we stopped at a rest park just outside Elizabethtown, Kentucky and rode our bikes down to a small area of trees to string up a tarp for shelter.(At the time, the rest park only had bathrooms, and they were nasty!) Anyway, the wind picked up tremendously. We all put our motorcycle helmets back on, and as we huddled together, we watched a large barn roof being ripped off by the wind and lots of debri flying through the air.The sound and force of the storm was unbelievable. The other tornado I was in passed over while I was in the basement. When we came out, the power was out. The trees all around us had fallen and smashed our car. A mobile home across the street was totally demolished. The National Guard came through the neighbor hood pretty quick to tell us to stay inside because of the downed power lines.

Answer 8

Lived in So Cal and went the earthquake thing several times, all small no damage. Spent 21 years in New Orleans, BIG Hurricanes, and all the flooding that goes with them. Lost everything twice. Now live in Ky and get tornados, I think the worst of all is the earthquakes, because you get no warning.At least with the Hurricanes and tornados we do know in advance.

Answer 9

I went through the Columbus Day Storm in 1962, the closest thing to a hurricane the Pacific Northwest has experienced. Also a couple mild earthquakes in OR and near miss tornadoes when I lived in GA.

Answer 10

Well outside of a tornado, we just with through an ice storm and it destroyed a lot of stuff in it's path. It was as though a tornado had gone through except not as many houses were damaged. We still have the evidence of the ice storm here. Another storm is coming in tonight and tomorrow. Just what we need, more damage.