Do you have a disaster or weather related story?

[Grgranny]

Back in 1955 we were on our way home from visiting my parents. It was near Downs, KS. My 13 year old brother was with us. I kept noticing a hazy streak in the stormy sky from sky clear down to earth. It was quite a while before I realized it was a tornado. It was following the road right towards us. My little brother started screaming "It's coming right for us, etc.". I had to tell him to shut up before he scared my 1, 3, & 5 year olds even more. We stopped but there was nowhere to pull off. Not even much of a shoulder. Just a few feet before it got to us it veered off into a field. Don't tell me there is no God! It was a fairly small tornado but big enough it had taken roofs off buildings.

My little brother took his own life at age 25 and I don't think I will ever recover from that. His birthday would have been last Sunday.

 

[NJSk8Fan]

Not a really big weather related story here, but:
In 1991 I left the grocery store just a couple miles from my house to come home...barely got the groceries in and a thunderstorm started. The wind was blowing REALLY strong. I was jumping around in my kitchen hollering out of nervousness, I was home alone...I kept saying "I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz". When the storm was over, there was nothing but trees laying on the back of our house. My insurance company suggested we call the police out to see if it should be investigated to see if it was a tornado or twister.....they said it looked like just straight-line wind and that most the trees that went over were 1/2 dead or in really soft ground. A HUGE tree in the yard of our rental property next store was uprooted and went over. I couldn't even see out any of our back windows for all the leaves and branches covering everything.
Miraculously enough, the only damage the house received was a small bit of gutter bent and a few shingles pulled up off the roof. Our tenant came over afterwards hollering in my window "are you okay in there?" I assured him I was. My husband couldn't believe it when he got home later that evening and saw all the trees laying on the back of the house!

 

[Aloft04]

Aw Grgranny, sorry about your brother.

Oregon coast, one dark Columbus Day (October something), we had a full-fledged hurricane. It was before Kennedy was shot, so probably 1962. What I remember the most was that I was in science class with a very prim and prissy, soft-spoken teacher - Miss Brett. Nobody was paying attention of course, we were all looking out the windows while she mumbled her way through a chapter. The power was out but we were stuck because they couldn't get the buses to us. One of the kids yelled "Wow! Look at that!" as we all watched the roof of an adjoining part of the school flying through the air toward our classroom, turning in the air like slow motion. Prim Miss Brett bellowed in a voice we never guessed could come from her, "Run you little bastards!!" We were all so shocked everybody froze. The roof hit our classroom and broke the window wall out. There were only minor injuries miraculously, but decades later at a class reunion it wasn't the force of the storm we reminisced about, but proper Miss Brett's transformation

 

[Ladskater]

: Do you have a disaster or weather related story? Edit Post

Grgranny:

Living in Canada, I have many memories of enduring snow storms. One in particular comes to mind from my childhood. We were visiting my dad's family farm (in Alberta) and had ventured out one stormy day (I can't remember where we were going) anyway, I just remember our car getting stuck and my dad trudging to a neighbours farm where we ended up for the night! It was freezing cold, we were might happy to find some friends for the night.

I also lived in Prince George, BC and remember having to walk to school in freezing temperatures - we were tough! We were not even allowed in the school right away either. My thumbs were always numb by the time the school opened. We always had to unbury our car as well and then defrost the windows before we could go anywhere.

Of course, it's not so severe here on the coast. Although we get a little snow in the winter it is nothing compared to Prince George or Calgary or Edmonton!

I forgot to mention the horrific snow storm we had in Victoria (Vancouver Island) about five years ago. Of course, Victoria sees little snow, so the city in its wisdom decided to get rid of the cities snow plows and snow clearing equipment. Probably only had one or two for the whole darn place. Would'nt you know, mother nature decided to unleash a huge dump of snow on the flower capital that winter! We were literally "snow bound" for almost a week. I tried to venture out, but would sink up to my knees in snow. I had to creep my way back to my apt. My car was buried under a huge amount of ice and snow. I could not even dig my way out. It ended up bringing Victoria, to a halt. No one could move! It was sort of nice. People were out walking and talking to one another and clearing sidewalks for each other. Who knew a snow storm could bring such a feeling of peace?

 

[Aloft04]

Edited to say 'Never mind - talkin' to myself again...'

 

[JonnyCoop]

As it happens, we just had an earthquake down here yesterday. I was helping a friend of mine renovate a house and we were sitting on the patio and he suddenly said "My chair is moving" and I said "So is mine." He was actually quite relieved as we had just been discussing those big sand spiders they have in Iraq; this, plus the fact that there were large spiders in that house, led him to believe that large spiders were moving his chair initially.

My previous earthquake was the Seattle one in -- 2000? 2001? We felt that one all the way down in Portland; worked in a basement office and it was rocking back and forth for about 45 seconds, tho maybe it only SEEMED that long. The funny thing about that one was, right before it hit, I got a call from the supervisor upstairs and just when I picked up, the building started shaking and she didn't say anything for a little bit then she said, "Are we having an earthquake?" and I said "Yeah, I think we are" and she said, "Oh. Well, anyway -- what's a 4-letter word for (can't remember the word)??" [She was working on a crossword puzzle upstairs]. Meanwhile the place is still shaking away; I said "I don't know, can I think about it and get back to you later?" Meanwhile my two co-workers had LONG since booked it out of the room!!

Lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Andrew. Not much damage in the New Orleans area, but the funny part was about 3 days later when the news had a feature on "What we learned from Hurricane Andrew" and the weather guy said, "OK -- first of all -- we told you people that when you were to evacuate, you were to go east. That would be Mississippi. Most of you decided to go to Baton Rouge. For your information, Baton Rouge is WEST!! You were driving right into it!!"

 

[Grgranny]

Believe it or not, I have been through an earthquake. Sure scared the bejeebers out of me. We were living in Seattle and I had taken the bus to Renton for a Dr. checkup. (First baby!) I was in the bathroom getting a specimen and the building started really shaking. I had no idea what was going on. And then they took my blood pressure.My husband was at work and was more scared that I was. (Boeing) Guess they all dived under their desks. Had a huge break in the floor. Turned out it was a 6.2.

 

[Blue Bead]

Ah, tornadoes....

My first experience with one happened when I was about 14 years old. A report came on the tv and interrupted the show my family was watching to say that a tornado was heading our direction, and that everyone should go to their basements. At the time I lived in a house built back in the late 1880's so the basement had about as much depth to it as a root cellar (about five foot ceiling height, ). My parents and I ended up down there with a portable transitor radio, a jug of water, and several candles. My father gave me one of those candles to hold. The noise from the funnel cloud sounded like a freight train coming through the backyard! I freaked out. I was wearing my long hair in braids down either side of my neck, and caught one of my braids on fire. This freaked me out even more, LOL. My father dumped a whole jug of water all over me . It did put out the my braid but being cold and wet in a damp basement and being scared out of my wits with a howling tornado rampaging in the backyard has been etched on my mind ever since. We lost three huge old maple trees and our elecricity was off for 3 days. Our neighbors just a quarter mile east of us lost the roof off their front porch as well as the glass out of their second story windows.

The only earthquake experience I've had came at a horseshow in the mid 1980's in Zanesville, Ohio. It was an outdoor show and our horses had been acting squirrely all day, LOL, and we couldn't quite figure out why. The show was on a Sunday and a western pleasure class had just finished up and the first entrant in the trail class had entered the ring when the loud booming noise started with a tremble you could feel in your feet. It only lasted for maybe eight or nine seconds. Nobody's horse freaked out but they were definitely unsure of what was happening. The show continued without a hitch. Some of us were talking about the sound and the motion and thought it odd that the coal miners would have been blasting on a Sunday. About an hour later during a break in the classes they announced on the PA system that there had been an 3.2 earthquake, LOL. Most exhibitors remained to the end of the show but several packed up and went home.

 

[Piel]

In January of 1978 we had the worst snow storm ever here. No one was allowed to drive on the roads except the National Guard and law enforcment. All hospital employees had to be taken to and from work by ther Guards. Once at the hospital we had to stay all week. There was a floor on one wing of the hospital that was not being used so it was set up as a dorm for us. For those of us who didn't have spouses or children at home to worry about it was quite fun.

We have only had some very minor earth quake activity here. The only one I can remember though is in 1981. At the time I lived in a high rise building where most of the residents were singles who worked at the hospital or the Capitol. There was always a lot of partying on the weekends especially in the summer around the pool. One Sunday morning I was reading the newspaper when it looked like one of the bookcases slightly moved for a few seconds. It was like did that happen, did I imagine it, or maybe it's time to cut down on the partying, LOL? Later that day by the pool everyone seemed a little reserved until finally someone asked if anyone else noticed the tremor that morning. Everyone looked at each other with such relief.

Right now we are having flash flooding. My house is about 200 feet from the Kanawha River and I have never had any trouble with high water. A few blocks away people have several feet of water in their homes. In the Southern coal fields of WV it floods regularly, folks lose everything, but keep rebuilding on the same spot only to be flooded out again. The worst was in 1972 and an earthen dam at Buffalo Creek broke. The saddest thing about this was that officials of the coal company that owned the dam were aware of the impending collapse but did not notify the people living below the dam. Then Governor Arch Moore who owned coal mines allowed the Buffalo Coal Co. responsible for the flood to get of without any penalties all in the name of maintaining a good business climate. DO NOT let me get started on this man, who was later reelected governor, relieved coal companies of owing their worker's comp premiums, was sent to prison,and lost his law license. His daughte Shelley Moore Capito (Arch II) is now our congresswoman Arch recently tried to get his law license reinstated but was denied. He whined "I want to die a lawyer".

http://www.mywvmountain.com/path1/buffalo/flood.html

I was a senior in high school and along with a lot of other people from here in the Kanawha Valley we went to Buffalo Creek to help with clean up and wherever needed at the shelters.