Do you believe that earthquake ??

[Davina101]

You're right, we have had our share of about every one of mother nature's tricks and IMO, the tornadoes are the scariest.  But they seem smaller than what I'm used to in the mis-west.  Still, if you're in the wrong spot, that doesn't help much.  I'm just praying that 2004 was a freak and we won't see anything like that again. 

What's really interesting, hurricanes are the only natural disaster, (that I know of), that people schedule parties for. 

[Maryanne Solo]

*nods I have been to many a cyclone/orphans party When you live away from home and a cyclone hits. They are great fun as long as its a little cyclone. Category 3's are the best. You stare in amazement as things go flying past from behind category 5 rated glass windows. As long as no one gets hurt and not too much property damage happens.

I lived in a beautiful little stand alone unit that had a rotating vent thingy on the roof? A category 3 hit and the vent was spinning like mad, then a really strong gust came along and it shot about 30 metres up in the air and landed maybe 100 metres down the cycleway! I ran out and got it back but it was dented and broken, (goodness knows what I thought I was going to do with it o.0)

So after ages of stressing about the water coming into the roof, I had to get up in there and push a plastic bucket out and over the hole to stop the torrents of rain gushing in, I had made a hole in it and pushed a bit of strong string through it then tied it to the inside of the roof. It held. The most dangerous part of all this is that the cycleway had a tidal erm .. channel next to it, a 2m surge made it flood and I realised the next day that a saltwater crocodile could have easily been right there, just waiting...

I was totally exhausted after all this and managed to fall asleep on the couch for hours until it had subsided. What a night! Nothing too unusual for the Far North Queensland Tropics though

 

[Void Singer]

nah, in some places major rivers flooding is also a party occasion as it means all that river silt is washed into the the farming areas and they get bumper crops...

in Hawaii we had tsunami parties (and a few nuts always head for the protected beaches for surfing), and there's parties for some of the volcao eruptions too. oddly I don't remember there being hurricane parties (just lots of surf fanatics out)

up north on the east coast we used to have lightning parties.... but they were pretty small spur of the moment things because you don't get much warning.

 

four worst I've been through are watching a tornado touch down literally across the street from me in west Texas, back to back hurricanes in NW Florida, and two earthquakes southern California (east of LA) one had the chandelier in the old style farm house swing up to the roof nearly, and another I was in a field and the ground pitched me up and I swear it dropped 5 feet immediately after..... I bounced like a rubber ball.

[Davina101]

Now that sounds scary, having the ground moving that much under you.  I had some family in CA and they used to talk about the quakes like they were no big deal but they lived out in the Valley in a one story home. Not too much to fall on you.  I think I would freak in a tall building.

I never heard of those "flooding" parties but I can see that.  I'm guessing people are also really busy trying to prepare and shore up their homes.  I saw some really creative levies that people built around thier properties in this recent flood from the Mississippi.  But I guess flooding can be just as devistating as anything else.  That has to be just awful but I guess that's what insurance is for.

The worst time we had was that fall of '04.  Living half a block from the beach meant no electricity for days at a time and three of the four hurricanes directly impacted us.  All three times we went days with no power.  I boarded up the house pretty good and we ignored the evac orders and rode them out right here.  We even got some video of stuff flying down the street.  It's alway fun to see who's going to stick around and who's going to leave.  And it's funny how when you don't have electricity, everyone comes out of their house and it's a big social event.  But soon as the power is restored, people suck back into their houses just because of the air-conditioning.

[Rabid Cheetah]

When I lived in Hell (I mean Northern Florida), one year they had frost (yes, lol FROST) that evaporated by the afternoon.  You would have thought it was The Blizzard of '79 by the way they reacted.  This was thuroughly entertaining for us Displaced Yankees, who kept saying stuff like "So THIS is what y'all call snow?  No WONDER we kicked your ass in 1865, you pansies!"  lol

Don't worry, all my redneck brethren:  Our teasing was all in good fun.  Just like when they pretended to chase us out of town with torches and pitchforks for three whole counties...

 

 

[Knowl Paine]

I thought the Blizzard was in 1977?

[Quinn Morani]

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Davina101 wrote:

You can always move to Florida.  I prefer my natural disasters with a three or four day advance warning. ;-)

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That's more or less what I always tell people, too! 

I did feel my first earthquake about a year or year and a half ago when I was in San Diego for work. I think it was a 5.7, but epicenter far enough away that there was no real damage. I was on a high floor in a tall hotel and could feel the building swaying. It was very surreal.

[Quinn Morani]

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Up4 Dawes wrote:

 Was really bad,,,

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It will take years to rebuild!

[Quinn Morani]

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Davina101 wrote:

  I'm just praying that 2004 was a freak and we won't see anything like that again. 

What's really interesting, hurricanes are the only natural disaster, (that I know of), that people schedule parties for. 

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2004 — Charley, Frances and Jeanne all blew through Central Florida from different directions within weeks of each other. I never want to see anything like that again, either. We had tarp on our roof for nearly a year after Jeanne. And a very scary moment when my son injured himself during Jeanne and we were home alone, since my husband has to be at a local emergency operations center during these storms. I vowed after that NEVER to stay alone with the kids during another storm without another adult around. What would the kids have done if something had happened to me? That thought frightened me. Next time, I'm having a hurricane party. That's why people have them. So they aren't alone.