Everyone has a "once in a lifetime" natural disaster...what was yours? - Page 1

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Everyone has a "once in a lifetime" natural disaster...what was yours? (Page 1 of 6)

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:41:15 PM EST

I did Hurricane Andrew in a crappy apartment building.

Highest winds1-minute sustained: 175 mph (280 km/h)
Lowest pressure922 mbar (hPa); 27.23 inHg

Unreal f'ing damage. Worst thing I've ever seen.

It was my "first" hurricane after moving to Florida in 1990. I've done several since (including 3s and 4s) but nothing was like Andrew.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:43:59 PM EST

[#1]

2018 7.2 earthquake was hopefully the worst.

in1992 a volcano erupted and covered everything in abrasive ash. That wasn't fun.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:48:27 PM EST

[#2]

Tornado two weeks ago.

I deployed with the U.S. Army out of Ft. Drum after Andrew hit, we stayed at Homestead AFB and assisted with clean up and passing out food and water, maybe we gave you some MRE's

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:49:28 PM EST

[#3]

I've been lucky enough to avoid any (knock on wood).

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:50:30 PM EST

[#4]

Hurricane Harvey in Houston

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:51:20 PM EST

[#5]

Been close to a couple tornados but no direct hits personally.
Probably the ice storm of 06 here. No power for a month.
Lost a couple grand in fish, other than that just inconvenience having to stay with friends and only have my motorcycle for transportation.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:51:21 PM EST

[#6]

Once? Rookies

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:52:16 PM EST

[#7]

a wildfire burned down 1100 homes in my and the adjacent town just over a year ago. we were extremely lucky and our home made it through.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:52:16 PM EST

[#8]

When I didn't quite make it to the shitter once.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:52:35 PM EST

[#9]

Sandy.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:52:38 PM EST

[#10]

In my 66 years, I haven't had one yet.
But then there are no major earthquakes, hurricanes, or tornados in Arizona - just a happy life.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:54:12 PM EST

[#11]

'09 Ice Storm, I guess. No power for nearly 2-weeks.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:54:28 PM EST

[#12]

Yea op, Andrew sucked!

Of course I was in Louisiana at the time.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:55:03 PM EST

[#13]

Quote History

Quoted:
When I didn't quite make it to the shitter once.

View Quote

At Texas Roadhouse?

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:55:22 PM EST

[#14]

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:56:11 PM EST

[#15]

Quote History

Quoted:
When I didn't quite make it to the shitter once.

View Quote

only once?

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:57:19 PM EST

[#16]

I live in N.D. it's called winter.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:58:05 PM EST

[#17]

St Helens was the first.

Ian was the latest.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:58:23 PM EST

[#18]

I've been through multiple hurricanes. Lost 2 roofs and a car to them. My most vivid natural disaster memory is when I was a kid and the creek close to my parents house flooded. Our basement was so flooded the freezer was hitting the pipes in the ceiling. Neighbor had to be rescued by boat. He had water pouring into his first floor. Had locals setting up lawn chairs and watching. The clean up sucked! We had about a foot of sediment in the basement we had to scrape off and haul off.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:58:55 PM EST

[#19]

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:59:03 PM EST

[#20]

1989 LP 6.9 earthquake epicenter about 16miles from the house. Other than some water coming in the back door from the pool we had no damage. Our yard was rock everywhere underground so we were on SOLID ground.

Had some friends who's houses were damaged fairly mildly.

It was interesting as I've been through multiple 5ish earthquakes, the LP was pretty serious.

Posted: 1/27/2023 8:59:52 PM EST

[#21]

Out west you get fires or earthquakes. I've felt a few earthquakes, but never had any damage from them. No fires that came real close. Only one evacuation. So really, no big disaster in 55 years.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:00:06 PM EST

[#22]

Lots of hurricanes and tropical storms in my life. But Harvey takes the cake. Driving my boat down city streets was and still is surreal.

Refinery explosions are a trip too.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:00:12 PM EST

[#23]

I've been in about 12 hurricanes in my seven decades of living in Florida.

The worst one for me was Hurricane Donna in 1960 because the eye wall came over our property. Lots of structural damage, trees down and we were without electricity for six weeks.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:00:20 PM EST

[#24]

Some fires, some floods.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:01:25 PM EST

[#25]

Heavy snow one weekend in March back in 1993, that dumped nearly 2ft of snow (hey, now - that's a shitload of snow for upstate SC

) Friday night and into Saturday.
Didn’t GAF, and went to the gunshow anyway.

Then the next year, I was visiting my parents in L.A. when the Northridge earthquake occured.
That was an interesting morning.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:01:34 PM EST

[#26]

Alphabetically or chronologically?

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:01:45 PM EST

[#27]

Joplin tornadoes and those that followed it that day.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:01:50 PM EST

[#28]

Hurricane Hugo

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:02:11 PM EST

[#29]

Quoted:
I did Hurricane Andrew in a crappy apartment building.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Andrew_1992-08-23_1231Z_%28Cropped%29.png

Highest winds1-minute sustained: 175 mph (280 km/h)
Lowest pressure922 mbar (hPa); 27.23 inHg

Unreal f'ing damage. Worst thing I've ever seen.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/HurricaneAndrew.jpg

It was my "first" hurricane after moving to Florida in 1990. I've done several since (including 3s and 4s) but nothing was like Andrew.

View Quote

Andrew.
I was in south Dade as the house that I grew up in, came apart around me. Then reported to shift and ran rescue calls for the next 4 days straight.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:02:19 PM EST

[#30]

Hugo in '89

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:03:03 PM EST

[#31]

Quote History

Quoted:
Joplin tornadoes and those that followed it that day.

View Quote

Fuck, that was messy.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:03:24 PM EST

[#32]

Oso Landslide

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:03:35 PM EST

[#33]

it snowed for 10 minutes back in the winter of 2018.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:04:23 PM EST

[#34]

A little high water here and there, but nothing threatening. Hope that’s all there ever is.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:05:19 PM EST

[#35]

Hugo.

Rode it out in Summerville.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:05:28 PM EST

[#36]

Slept through a minor earthquake in Cali as a kid.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:05:34 PM EST

[#37]

St. Helens

Attached File

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:05:45 PM EST

[#38]

Blizzard of 1978.

It got so bad that my father was hired by the county engineer to clear paved roads with his bull dozer. It took three days to get it started as the fuel had jelled. We built a wall around it with hay bales and used a torpedo heater to thaw it out.

People died a few hundred yards from a house a they couldn’t see it.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:05:54 PM EST

[#39]

Arfcockalypse

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:06:16 PM EST

[#40]

The most interesting one I've read about is the "year without a summer" which happened in 1816.

Unfortunately it's tough nowadays to find an article that didn't reference "climate change". Which is utterly ridiculous.

Basically a volcano erupted, which volcanos naturally do, but it was a big one. Shot a whole fuck ton of ash into the sky in the entire western hemisphere. Lots of people in America and Europe died from starvation. Apparently very very little sunlight made it through the thick cloud.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:07:57 PM EST

[#41]

My house burned mostly to the ground right before Christmas in 2007. Took a year to rebuild them we got flooded out after a 100 year old dam broke.

I’m only missing a tornado to level us to get the trifecta.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:08:38 PM EST

[#42]

We took the worst side of Ida right in the face a year and a half ago. I got new hardieboard siding and a new roof out of it but my homeowners has doubled.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:10:16 PM EST

[#43]

Katrina

Lost every damn thing I owned.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:10:34 PM EST

[#44]

2008 ice storm, western KY.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:10:48 PM EST

[#45]

Quote History

Quoted:

Blizzard of 1978.

View Quote

My Mom was a home health nurse. One of her patients had an emergency around the third day, and they had to fly her across the county in an airplane fitted with skis, because none of the roads were open. My siblings and I thought that was pretty cool. Dad worked for the County Garage, and was gone for twelve days - they just stayed at the garage.

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:12:09 PM EST

[#46]

Flood of '08 in Cedar Rapids was pretty bad, lots of damage, lots of destroyed homes.

Derecho of '20 in Iowa was devastating for many. Destroyed thousands of acres of crops, damaged and destroyed thousands of homes. My town (suburb of CR) lost like 65% of it's tree canopy. No power for a week and there are still areas where the felled trees haven't been cleaned up yet.

Worst of all (for me), it permanently shut down the nuke plant I worked at after the winds knocked the cooling towers down.

Attached File

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:12:20 PM EST

[#47]

Sandy

Posted: 1/27/2023 9:13:30 PM EST

[#48]

Quote History

Quoted:
Hurricane Harvey in Houston

View Quote

Caught the aftermath of that one. Weird driving down Westheimer in W. Houston, and being limited to the far left lane, because the others were flooded. We left at like 1AM Sunday, after a day + evening of watching the clouds swirl overhead from it kicking the shit out of Corpus.

After dinner that night, hearing some rain, I figure, "Why not check the (online) river flow gauges?" Pull up the Buffalo Bayou station, see the forecast stream height goes vertical, and say, "Holy Shit! How high is our place again?" Got concerned that our place might be fine, but our one car would be fucked. Ergo, throw enough stuff for a week in the car and dash.

We made it to the Belt (clever me forgot about where it dips under Memorial---clear and dry though), almost going in the opposite lanes of Westheimer to get there, as they looked a little less flooded. Plus, the water looked like it was rising.

We were listening to Matt Thomas on 740 as we drove North on the Belt, watching cars below on the frontage roads look like boats with the wakes they were throwing. As we're going, we hear him announce, one after the other, all of the exits closing to get onto highways like the Belt. Felt like Indy, getting chased by the Boulder.

Eventually we made it to 45 North, got passed Spring and Cypress Creek and eventually stopped at Buc-Ees to sleep. The rain was horizontal there, and our car got rocked by gusts, but we weren't going to flood. Lot of water. Lot of damage.

Was ~10 miles-ish from the epicenter of the '89 Loma Prieta earthquake. Not good seeing the ground actually ripple. I was outside, waiting for the bus to take us home after X-Country practice. I knew a few of the girls you see running in the volleyball gym in the video montage you often see of the incident. They were quite a bit closer to the center when it happened. Must have been terrifying, being indoors. I half expected our student center to collapse, the shaking was so hard. Didn't, thankfully.