Friday OT - Au Natural

[Angie]

The wildfires in LA are crazy right now; I hadn’t expected to go to the front page of CNN on Tuesday and read about hero Steve Guttenberg.

Some of my in-laws live in northern Cali up near Yosemite, and their town has been ravaged by wildfires multiple times. My uncle used to head up a state youth organization in Arizona and would administer their summer camp each year - it was bizarre to hear about it burning down a few years ago. Some childhood friends had property damage in Joplin, MO, when the tornado hit. I suppose one of my formative memories is when we lived on a farm for a few years when I was very young, and a crazy ice storm in the early 90s took down our power for three days straight.

Natural disasters happen all around us - what are your experiences? Do you have a unique story?

 

[drlove]

My Aunt and Uncle had a farm that got hit by a tornado and destroyed a couple of the barns, but missed the house by about 75 yards.

 

[matclone]

I felt a mild earthquake one year when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. I was laying awake in my rack (a single bed) when all of sudden it felt like someone was shaking it aggressively, but no one was there. It was a new experience for this Iowa boy who had previously known only blizzards and tornadoes.

 

[Die4Cy]

Not a natural disaster, but I had crossed the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed in 2007 just the day before. With my wife and kids in the car. I think about that sometimes.

 

[Angie]

…I guess I should have thought ahead and realized my stomach would drop out with each post in this thread!

 

[MeanDean]

That cray-cray wind thingee in Aug 2020.

Home damage and power out for 7 days (and 2 hours)

 

[CYCLNST8]

Remember that tornado that hit Urbandale last summer? We took a direct hit, but fortunately suffered no major damage. We were in the basement watching tree limbs fall over the power lines across the street when I felt my ears popping. That's when I saw a debris ball of shingles and tree leaves swirling overhead. Then we backed into the "Alamo" which is our basement bathroom. That was wild.

 

[Angie]

Remember that tornado that hit Urbandale last summer? We took a direct hit, but fortunately suffered no major damage. We were in the basement watching tree limbs fall over the power lines across the street when I felt my ears popping. That's when I saw a debris ball of shingles and tree leaves swirling overhead. Then we backed into the "Alamo" which is our basement bathroom. That was wild.

That is bananas - I am so glad you were safe.

 

[jsb]

I don’t have any real close stories, thank goodness.

My parents’ farm floods fairly severely many years, while stressful and costly it’s not as personally devastating as many things.

One story that always amazes me is my parents had friends whose house was destroyed by a tornado in 2000. They rebuilt the exact same house in the same place and it was destroyed by a tornado in 2008.

 

[CYdTracked]

We had lightning strike and kill cows once in awhile during a thunderstorm. Usually would only kill 1 but the worst one we found 2 cows and a calf dead that were all laying in the same spot in the pasture. That one really sucked, losing 1 that way is never fun but 3 at once is not common.

 

[Die4Cy]

We had lightning strike and kill cows once in awhile during a thunderstorm. Usually would only kill 1 but the worst one we found 2 cows and a calf dead that were all laying in the same spot in the pasture. That one really sucked, losing 1 that way is never fun but 3 at once is not common.

I've had that happen too. You can usually find a burn scar on the animal down to the ground on them as evidence of what happened.

 

[Clonefan32]

During the derecho I was home for lunch looking out the window as the wind picked up. I watched an enormous old spruce tree we had in our yard fall in the opposite direction or our house, landing across the road and into the park that's next to us. The thing had to have been at least 50 feet tall and it literally fell in the only place that wouldn't have absolutely destroyed our home.

 

[ackatch]

I was at an Applebees in Florida once when a Tropical Depression came ashore right over us. Just a ton of rain.

 

[Al_4_State]

I'd imagine nearly everyone here has either experienced or known someone who experienced tornado or straight line wind damage.

My brother, a buddy, and myself once followed an F3 tornado for about 5 miles and watched it level 3-4 building sites, before eventually hitting a grain storage set up and tearing right through the middle of a long pole shed. It left each end of the shed standing, with the 75% of the middle completely gutted.

My dad was going for a jog (this was pre smart phone) and saw it coming and hid in a culvert. Pretty wild to see that kind of thing up close.

My most vivid memory was how it hit an old pole shed with a tin roof. All the sheets were bent in half and dropped onto a telephone line like towels drying on a rack.

It was this storm: https://www.weather.gov/arx/jun1104

 

[SaraV]

Not a natural disaster, but I had crossed the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed in 2007 just the day before. With my wife and kids in the car. I think about that sometimes.

I'm going to slightly one up you with my FIL crossing the bridge 45 minutes before the collapse.

 

[Entropy]

That cray-cray wind thingee in Aug 2020.

Home damage and power out for 7 days (and 2 hours)

Same.
I live on the West side of CR where some of the strongest winds were measured. An apartment complex about a mile south of my house lost its entire roof. After the exterior walls fell down, the interior walls fell down as well.
I was lucky to only lose some shingles and lost power for 10 days.

 

[wxman1]

2020 Derecho, 2008 CR flood, helped family clean up the farm in Tama county after the 2011 derecho. I have witnessed a couple of tornadoes but no direct impact from them. Would have taken a direct hit from a monster one when we lived in Wichita but thankfully it never touched down. I did feel an earthquake when we lived down there.

 

[JM4CY]

Didn't read the OP. Saw the thread title and just wanted to post this.

 

[cycub51]

We were playing baseball in high school at what was prairie valley and their field was built in the country. A kid in their team that spoke Spanish as his first language started pointing and yelling in Spanish from 3rd base so everyone turned and looked not understanding what he was saying. A funnel cloud was coming down and a tornado formed probably a couple of miles away and we saw it hit a farmstead.

Everyone went towards the school but an administrator from there didn’t allow us in because they had just had the floors waxed and we weren’t in immediate danger. It never rained where we were and 30 or so minutes later we finished the game.

 

[ackatch]

Didn't read the OP. Saw the thread title and just wanted to post this.

Convince me that Creed isn't the best character in The Office.

I don't think anyone can.