Rate your natural disaster expierience

[Topcat]

Just call me lucky

Drout
Floods
Hurricane
tornado
Mountain fires
Hail
Blizzards
sink holes
Earth quakes

All this in the last 12 years  My property has been hit 3 times by tornados in the last 8 years, 3 huricanes, Hail storms a few times, ice storms a few times,  the crap just seems to track me down. Not to mention mine cave ins,and  plant explosions.  Um, im off to a neuclear fuel plant next week out of the country. Not all excited about that one

God is following you. you are staying alive thru so many disasters.

Tell us one of your best stories Al.

[Moparal]

TC   I got so many    Well tornado 3 years ago took my barn with my 77 power wagon warlock 4x4 in it, It had a 426 max wedge engine setting in the bed with my trailer hooked to it and my 63 sport fury convert was on it. The whole barn was gone leaving all my toys exposed. The next year the tornado took the back part of the house and the power supply along with the telephone poles. Hurricane Katrina Blew my 72 cuda across the drive and crushed the quarters, the Hurricane Gustav took the cuda roof and so now my race car is all fiberglass.  I was working in a morton salt mine drilling and had just gotten out, we were the last crew under ground when a driller near the gulf of mexico drilled into it, colasping the dome and filling it up with the rig, a tug and barges, shrimp boats and sucked the bayou's dry. Or when I was going through Utah and Idaho and the mountain fires stopped me on the interstate with water planes and helicopters trying to keep it off of us. Or the blizzard that left me stranded in the middle of Wyoming on I-80 for 30 hrs stuck with no traffic for help, or when I was a explosive tech for an oil company and a driller short drilled a hole and I shot off 210 lbs of dynamite that was 50 ft deep and over 600 acres fell 8ft with me standing in the dam thing. Or when Hurrican andrew flooded through my house and we had to take small boats in and out with gators and snakes all around for a week, Also the red fire ants eating us up.  There is just too many stories to tell, and would take a while for each, but one day I will sit down and we can chat   Right now im filling out 20 papers to fax tomorrow to go into the Uranium mine this sunday, gotta be done and faxed in a few hrs.Buttttttttttt, that flash flood that went through Barstow 3 yrs ago?  I was just crossing the bridge going out to Boron when it hit. Took like 30 lives. Or when the amtrac train crashed in the swamp gpoing over that bridge down south alabama?  I was on my computer barge and went under that bridge just hrs before the train wreck in the am.  We were in the swamp when it went BOOOOOOOOOOOM. The chevron plant that exploded in texas?  I had just finished up that week and got out when those 3 guys screwed with the wrong valve, Dont forget about that sink hole in Los angelas last year. I flew in from Mexico, got into my truck and at 430 am the interstate, (half) fell in and I drove on the inside median getting around it before emergency people came to help.  Remind me to tell you the storey of the 350 dollar hot air ballon ride I went on in Lake Tahoe and the sucker ran out of fuel. We crashed on a farmers field and were forced to walk out through the desert      We all have a storey to tell dont we?  Ever start a wooden boat on fire in the middle of a lake with not even 1 paddle.   I got whipped real good for that but it wasnt catostrofic I guess, but was funny to me and dangerous to fire department and police personell.    I dont log near misses at work, I call them near hits

[Topcat]

Well here's my story on the 89' Loma Prieta Earthquake. A day that will be never forgotten for me.

Around 4:30pm, a friend living next door said let's go get Jaimie, a buddy of ours and all of us hang out and watch the battle of the bay bridge World Series together. He lived about a mile away.

Jaimie lived on a busy 2 lane road in the sleepy little town of Los Gatos where we all lived at the time. Los Gatos has the Loma Prieta mountains hovering right over looking down on the valley only 1-2 miles away. We were all out in front of his house right next to the 2 lane road. It was rush hour at the time. So quite a few cars were whizzing by; everyone hurrying to watch the big game.

Then it came... but we were warned without even knowing it. It was a roaring sound I will never forget. We immediately all went silent. I quickly turned my head looking towards the mountain. I imagined in a millisecond a huge bomb must've gone off on the other side. It was all the trees shaking and groaning from the huge wave coming right at us.

Then it hit. I vividly recall how I was like picked up and just slammed onto the ground. I kept trying to get on my feet but each time I tried, it was like "No you Can't". So I was just laying there on my butt with my hands on the ground behind me and my feet on the ground looking up totally freaked.

As I looked up, I saw the telephone pole wires stretching like large rubber bands as the poles were tilting almost at 45 degree angles. It lasted about 15 seconds but it seemed like hours within those few seconds.

We ran into the house to check on Jaimie's parents. His Mom was totally mortified as she was quake phobic. She was really freaked. Jaimie's Dad was just letting go of the fish tank from falling when we came in.

Then my other friend Danny and I both realized we needed to go back to his place ASAP. Our other friend Paul was in the basement when we left him earlier telling him we'd be right back.

As we drove back with urgency wondering if Paul was alright, we saw dogs and cats and people all running around in the neighborhood. Only a minute since it hit had gone by this time. We arrived quickly and just as we showed up, Paul was dragging himself up the basement stairway. There was glass all over in his hair. A beer bottle collection had come crashing down on him when it hit. He was OK luckily. The car that was in the driveway moved out in the street. Power was off everywhere. So we listened to radio.

We found out that Los Gatos was completely shut down. We jumped on the bikes and rode down there. It was absolutely incredible. Houses were off their foundations, brick overheads littered, Red cross setting up tents. Total Kaos!

We found this mexican restuarant and people were gathering around near a cart. The owner was giving out all his food and beers for free. We loaded up all of our coats with corona's and burrito's. Then went to the back behind the H.S and drank beers and pounded burrito's. We were very hungry. After we cruised all over town meeting people we knew, talking, and assessing all the damage that occured. We heard Santa Cruz hwy 17 was closed. It was full of huge cracks. They didn't re open it for over a week later on.

The rush of that night is ingrained in my memory everyday like it just happened today. But what the one thing that kept scaring me the most wasn't the big one.

It was all the after shocks that preceded it days after it.

-Mike

[Topcat]

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.
It was felt as far away as Los Angeles which is about 500 miles away.

Alot of people recollecting that fateful day.
Certainly many were watching the MLB World Series game that night when it occured.

[Chryco Psycho]

I have been in very few natural disasters But I was watching Kahoutec comet go over in the far north @ -60F & working in Ft Mc 4 years ago it hit -76F .... very life threatening 

[1 Wild R/T]

Sorry but Loma Prieta was a little tremor...

I was in Anchorage in 64....

[Topcat]

Sorry but Loma Prieta was a little tremor...

I was in Anchorage in 64....

Alaska was seriously a huge Earthquake. Cracks were huge. 
Keep perspective on the Geography where an earthquake hits.

SFO and Watsonville were seriously devastated because they were sitting on a sandy loamed underbase.
Both were over 50 miles away.

Sandy under geograhpy causes the waves to double in size underneath. Alaska is very mountainous and the wave is more of a hard jolt. Sandy geography makes waves that keep reverberating.   

[7212Mopar]

I think they call it liquidfaction.

Loma Prieta was devasting to the SF Bay Area. SF in darkness after the quake was worst than spending the night in the African plain. You won't see it in the news but it was bad.

[1 Wild R/T]

I watched 2'-3' waves roll down the center of my street for over four minutes, houses on both sides of our house collapsed, if the 64 quake had hit a population center the death toll would have been enormous.....

In the first day alone, eleven major aftershocks were recorded with a magnitude greater than 6.4.

Seiche waves, sloshing of water back and forth in a small body of water like a boat harbor or swimming pool, were noted as far away as Louisiana, where a number of fishing boats were sunk. Oscillations in the height of water in wells were reported as far away as South Africa.

I was in  Watsonville a few days after the quake, yeah they had some damage but nothing of the magnitude of the 64 Quake...
Like I said Loma Prieta was a little tremor...

[Topcat]

I'll concede that 9.2 is bigger than 7.9.

But 7.9 is still a major league.

[1 Wild R/T]

I'll concede that 9.2 is bigger than 7.9.

But 7.9 is still a major league.

Yeah, except Loma Prieta wasn't a 7.9 it was a 6.9.....   You wouldn't believe how much damage a 7.9 in that area would have done......

The Richter scale is logarithmic, meaning that whole-number jumps indicate a tenfold increase. In this case, the increase is in wave amplitude. That is, the wave amplitude in a level 6 earthquake is 10 times greater than in a level 5 earthquake, and the amplitude increases 100 times between a level 7 earthquake and a level 9 earthquake. The amount of energy released increases 31.7 times between whole number values.

So Loma Prieta at 6.9, a 7.9 would be 10 times more powerful, a 8.9 100 times more powerful now add those extra .3 at this end of the scale & the 64 Alaska quake comes in around 200 times more powerful than Loma Prieta....

Actual energy released is around 3,000 times as much....

Yeah Loma Prieta was a tremor....

[anlauto]

None of the above...sorry....

[MOPAR FANATIC]

  Yup,i had to check.your'e from cali and forgot about us northerners with our winter blizzards,solid whiteouts,four foot snowdrifts and three to four feet of snow in 1-1 1/2 days,just to name a few.  this is what i  have forward to look to in a month or so.      i a'm not looking forward to it at all.at least this year i have a new snowblower and am ready for it. 

[ToxicWolf]

I saw 15 funnel clouds hanging out of one big black cloud once.     Not something I would like to see again.

[dfrazz]

Does a divorce count as a "natural disaster"?