I survived a natural disaster

I recently survived a massive flood...Ok not really but I did sit through Evan Almighty.

I got some cum in my eye once...that was like a disaster for a few seconds.

That's more like surviving a plague than a natural disaster.

I was in Central London when the tube bombings happened and nobody knew what was going on, including the police.
Memorable day.

I've survived two big San Diego fires, this one and the big 2003 cedar fire(Which was MUCH scarier than this one)

In 2004 Hurricane Charley came through my next of the woods. We had a 'hurricane party' at my friend's house, and stocked up on lots of rum, whiskey, & beer. We had around 30 people in the house, and wasted time by taking pictures of drunk people running out in the wind & rain and trying to hold onto trees. Quite entertaining.

The power went off for a short amount of time during the night, but other than that, it didn't seem like anything happened - just a lot of wind and rain. Then I drove home the next day, and I saw quite a bit of damage. Trees fallen over, and homes & cars damaged. Power was out at my house for 8 days, and the humidity in August was miserable. I didn't think it could get worse, but then when Hurricane Frances came through a month later, power was out for 11 days.

I very nearly drowned in a swollen river once, but that's really more of a case of me surviving my own rampant stupididty for try to cross a swollen river.

I've been in 3 and a half.

I was in Super Outbreak in 1974. I was only 3, but I remember it. I remember being thrown into our bathtub and covered with a mattress until the tornado left. I didn't know what in the hell was going on, but seeing the adults scramble like mad scared me. The tornado didn't hit us, but we drove around after and looked at the damage. I remember lots of wood. In viewing my parents pictures years later, I realized that wood was the framing of houses in nearby neighborhoods.

I was in Hurricane David in 79. I lived in Jupiter FL at the time. I was 8. Hurricanes at least give you ample time to prepare, so in knowing that it was coming, we went to the hardware store and purchased tons of plywood and boarded up all our windows. I remember being pretty excited about the whole thing. I think my dad was too - any reason for him to chop up wood and nail it to the house was cause for manly exuberance.

I remember not being very scared as it went down. I don't know how many of you have lived in, or visited FL, but a standard thunderstorm can be pretty tremendous. The raindrops are huge and can sting when they hit you, so this was like 8 hours of that kind of storm and then it seemed like it stopped. What had happened was, we were in the eye of the storm. We went outside, and everything was unnaturally still, warm and had a weird green tint to it. We suffered no losses, and no one was hurt.

In 1989, I was a Sr in High School, living in Huntsville AL, when I was in I was in November 1989 Tornado Outbreak. This was easily the most terrifying one, even though I was about 8 miles from it. It was terrifying because I was old enough to know how dangerous it was, and because, even from 8 miles away I could hear it roaring and whistling like some crazy gigantic device. I also was really freaking out, because I had many, many friends in the area of town where it landed.

It hit a major shopping road in the city and absolutely decimated it. It looked like ground zero for a nuke. Several of my friends were caught in the middle of it. My friend Brett was driving his car up a hill leading away from it, when he got caught in the winds. It lifted his car about 10ft off the ground, carried him about 100 yards and gently deposited him in an abandoned Drive in theater lot. He was in so much shock that when the paramedics and the police were assisting him, he couldn't remember his own name.

My gf at the time was working in a bookstore in one of the shopping areas that was hit, she said it got abnormally dark and loud. She was watching the parking lot from the main window of her business, and as she was watching, she saw the cars lift up a few inches, and kinda of skid/shuffle across the pavement. Immediately after that, she looked at the brick wall of the corner of the walkway outside the window, and watched the bricks on the corner pop out and fly off one by one. When her boss saw that, she screamed 'Get Down!' and shortly after they dropped to hide under the counter, the pressure dropped and blew out all the windows in the store.

My father's friend was walking to his car, an older model chevy sedan of some sort, and grabbed his door handle - this car had the older style handles that you'd put your whole hand around to open. Just as he opened it, he got caught in the winds, the tornado ripped his car door off the hinges, and with his hand still holding on to the door gripping it in fear, the tornado ripped the door and his whole fucking arm off. My dad's a whitewater enthusiast, and so is his friend - this day he paddles with one of those 2 pronged prosthetic claw hands.

I knew several others in it, one girl got her nose broken, another was having sex with his gf, and was found by the fire department naked but alive and unharmed. haha.

In 2003, I lived in Oceanside CA, and I watched 'FIRESTORM 2003!' burn about 10 miles from my condo. I was going through a divorce at the time, and said 'fuck it' and went surfing instead of worrying about it.

So at this point, i've been through a few natural disasters, but nothing scares the shit out of me like a tornado. It's just too violent and powerful. Fortunately they are short lived.

I've been in a lot of hurricanes. Lots and lots. Nothing Andrew or Katrina level, but probably two level-3's.

Back in Iowa during my third year of college the tornado alarm went off. I was bored senseless and didn't feel like leaving my room. After a few minutes the entire building (I was on the 14th floor on the dorm farthest from campus, next to a big wide open field of grass) started shaking like mad. I peeked out the window and saw the biggest fucking tornado I've ever seen-- this was, like, something out of Twister. And it was seriously only like 300-500 feet away, in the middle of the field. This fucker was WIDE and I couldn't see the top of it.

I ran like a bat outta hell to the lobby floor where everyone else was gathered (took the elevator, fuck the stairs, I was in a hurry) and everyone was huddled in the middle, away from the windows and walls.

Literally 2 minutes later the wind just STOPPED.

I peeked out, NOT A CLOUD IN SIGHT. It just disappeared, like that. Like it was never there.

Mother Nature's a weird bitch.

Yeah, a weird, cold psycho bitch.

It's just as bizarre when a "tornado-proof" place like Pittsburgh, which is guarded by mountains and rivers on all sides, gets violated by a tornado that burns through several buildings. I just think....we don't even have nice weather...how can we deserve this molestation?

I went through David, also, in Merritt Island, FL. I remember playing lots of board games by candlelight with my family. Also, when the eye passed over, the entire neighborhood came out for what amounted to a 15-minute block party.

Our home lost a couple of trees, but that was it. Lucky.

Was it green outside, like it was for me?

Puerto Rico's been (scientifically) way overdue for a big earthquake since, like, 1907. Every year that goes by without one just means it'll be even harder when it finally does hit, supposedly.

Yay...!

No, we got the eye after nightfall.

I spent most of my childhood in Washington State and I remember being able to see Mt. Saint Helens erupting on May 18, 1980. I was 5 at the time. We lived on a hill about 30 miles southeast of Seattle and my sister and I were playing out in the garage. I remember my mom came running out to get us and we stood in the lawn and watched the plume go up. We were way beyond danger range, but it was still freaky to a 5 year old. That night we got between ¾” and 1” of ash on our property, and we were up wind. The folks downwind got covered in the stuff.

Having spent a good deal of time in the Midwest I’ve seen plenty of funnel clouds, but luckily have never been directly involved with a tornado. That is one bit of nature that I’m fine with just seeing on TV and have no need to see in real life. I did see a water spout from a couple of miles away while returning from a dive trip off of Cairns, Australia. The spout was part of some storms that were in front of 2006’s Cyclone Larry, which hit Cairns the day after we left. The storm was a Category 5 and I was pretty glad that we got out of town prior to it hitting.

Being from Louisiana (about an hour west of Baton Rouge), I've seen my fair share of hurricanes. The 2005 hurricane season was quite a time for us, to say the least. Katrina didn't really affect us much, but Rita was quite the hellish experience. Everyone was fine and there was no great big property damage, but that bastard plowed through neighboring towns like something fierce.

Charley was no picnic. We were lucky it was such a fast-moving storm -- that amount of wind and rain hanging out for a day like Frances and Jeanne did could have made things a whole lot worse.

The night of Charlie was eerie. You could hear the wind building and building, and then regular thuds as stuff started hitting the sides and the roof of our apartment. Then the power went out and we sat there by candlelight in the hallway (no windows nearby) listening to a little battery-powered radio. And right when the eye was officially over Orlando, the DJ got all excited, practically shouting "We have a hurricane over Orlando!" And it sure sounded like it outside, a constant howling that would occasionally get even louder as the wind gusted. And then after about an hour, it got quiter and quieter and then it was all over.

Seeing everything in the light of day the next morning, it was unbelievable. Trees down everywhere, the pavement completely obscured by leaves and branches, huge billboards knocked over, flooded streets, it was amazing. We only lost power for about six hours, but what WayDen says was far more typical.

Funny thing was, the hurricane hit at 8:20pm, and there were bars downtown that were open at 10:00pm.