Was it earthquake, tsunami, tornado, storm, flood, or?
Experienced a river flooding due to excessive rainfall. Both on a small scale on a camping where some tents floated away, which was kind of funny because the owners had warned not to pitch the tents to close to the river.
More recently witnessed a large scale flooding last winter when large parts of the rhine flooded. There were no casualties in my region, but the damage was quite severe. Very sobering to see the death toll in the upstream regions. Also the impact to agriculture and infrastructure, with frequent rain keeping the ground fully saturated for months al the way up to summer.
Water is so vital for human civilization, and yet also very dangerous.
Does Ice Storm '98 count? As a kid, it was super wild to wake up to our house being ~10C then realizing that the heat wasn’t gonna be turning back on for a loooooong time.
Fortunately our neighbor had a gas stove in his basement and invited a bunch of folks from the neighborhood to use his house as a shelter for a while. It was super fun playing outdoors in the ice though. Literally everything was covered with inches of ice. You could put on a pair of skates and go anywhere you wanted for a couple days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm
thunder, i guess
Several tornados and multiple hurricanes.
- you have experienced: you experienced something
- you have BEEN experienced: something experienced you
Compare: dropped. “You have dropped it” vs “you have been dropped”
or?
You’ve left words out.
im not a native speaker man, give me a break
He respectfully taught you how to improve, you ought to say thank you.
Yup, Helene, a few months ago, in Asheville NC.
You could say I’m still experiencing it, I suppose. We’ve always been a place that’s too far inland for a hurricane. Very climate insulated. That bubble has burst for us here after this storm.
It was super scary, no cell service for days, no power or water or gas for days. We have a great network of people so we were supported and supporting but it went bad for many others.
But more than scary right now, it’s sad. Just seeing the devastation
Live in Australia, so lotta fire, and been in Brisbane for a while now, and it’s gone underwater a good few times during my time here, large floods are not very fun!
I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We really don’t get natural disasters here.
The closest we get in Halifax is a Cat 3 hurricane once every 3 or 4 years, multiple blizzards each winter, we get light freezing rain once a year and a significant amount about every 10 years.
We lose power for a few hours many times per year because our power company is privately owned and has to answer to shareholders.
I once went without power for 3 days.
Could be a lot worse.
I was in Christchurch for the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes that killed 185 people and critically damaged essentially every building within the city centre.
The whole thing was pretty surreal. My family were pretty lucky, our house was lightly damaged (old timber frame, moved ~2cm off its piles but was livable while that was fixed) and we had a few things break (including a 60L fishtank that nearly landed on me as I tried to get to a doorway), I know a few people who were without electricity and clean water for a week, or whose houses were damaged beyond repair then had to spend years fighting insurance companies to get what they were due.
I still live in the city, and it’s pretty much unrecognisable as to how it was before. Basically every major building in the central city had to either be torn down or significantly renovated to repair it. Basically every brick building built before the 1950s was damaged beyond repair. Huge chunks of residential land in the east of the city was so badly damaged that there is no way it could be safely built on again - the government brought all the houses, tore them down and fenced the area off.
I didn’t know Chrischurch also had earthquake in 2011…
7.1 in 2010 6.2 in 2011
Interesting tidbit: The 2011 earthquake had a lower magnitude however it had 3x the wave frequency than the 2010 which made it feel much more violent.
The first one was west of Christchurch, the second was south. Different direction of the waves brought many of the already weakened buildings down.
Where I was staying was on the hill of the epicenter of the second earthquake. Couldn’t stay from fear a boulder would roll through the house during an aftershock. I remember after every aftershock running outside to make sure nothing was coming our way.
The 2011 earthquake was not long before the Japan earthquake.
I flew into Christchurch the night before the 2011 earthquake, couldn’t do anything from all the damage. Flew to Indonesia. In Indonesia woke up to the rumble of a 6+ mag earthquake off the coast of Bali and ran out of the house…
That’s when Japan was already having 7+ magnitude earthquakes. The next day was the 9 magnitude earthquake in Japan.
Incredible experience.
I was 183 miles from Mount Saint Helens when it blew up in 1980. We still had half an inch of ash. The volcano was on a Sunday, school was cancelled on Monday. We had to wear dust masks to go outside.
When we got closer to the mountain, everything smelled like rotten eggs (sulfur). Even weeks later.
Tornados wreck my town every year. In short, it sucks.
Had a tornado go by 1/4 mile from our house once. It was dark so we didn’t really realize how close it was at the time. My dad and I were on the front porch when the sirens went off and were like “yea, whatever” because those things go off just about every time we have a storm in spring. Then we felt the air pressure drop and were like “Oh, shit, maybe we should go inside”. The next day we drove by where it went through and saw all the debris everywhere. Fortunately it was mostly empty field and didn’t hit any houses.
What does it feel like when the air pressure drops?
It went from feeling normal to feeling like there was less air around instantly. Like it was slightly harder to breathe and just feels lighter. It’s hard to explain. The closest thing I’d compare it to was going to someplace that’s a high altitude but it was an instant drop instead of changing as you go up.
To me at least, it feels like the air got heavier (even though it’s really getting lighter). That could be followed by your ears popping. Some people like me get joint pain. My wife gets migraines right away with big pressure drops. Atmospheric pressure is a weird thing.
I was 15 during the 1998 ice storm.
It’s obviously not as dangerous as a tornado or an earthquake or a flood, but it’s still a natural disaster, and disrupted society in the region for weeks and months.
At first it was difficult to realize the size of the catastrophe but then millions went without power, the infrastructure crumbled under the ice and roads became impracticable. The magnitude of the disaster became apparent when the army had to come and help.
Luckily I lived in a rural area at the time and we relied on a wood furnace for heat and hot water. We also shared a generator with other family members so I had power a few hours a day. Compared to people without heat water, food or electricity, it went ok for my family.
It took about 10 days for my region to have power back, while others had to wait for up to 30 days.
This left its mark on me and now I try to be prepared, have batteries charged, solar panels, water reserves, food for a few days, a camping stove, ways to keep warm, etc., just in case.
Mine would be back in 2011, Tohoku Earthquake. Despite being pretty far from the epicentre, the earthquake is to this day the strongest I have felt…
Same here. Was walking out of a friend’s apartment complex in Asakasa Tokyo where I was staying in when it hit. Heard this low rumbling that came from all directions and the birds were going nuts. Looked up and saw the high rise I just walked from swaying while the glass facade of another building was undulating. Never been in an earthquake before so I was more amused about the shaking ground than frightened. And it didn’t help that every single Japanese was very calm, so I thought it was no big deal until much later when the tsunami hit.
Earthquakes have to be one of the weirdest natural disasters. I’ve only been in a ‘tiny’ 5.4 magnitude (+countless aftershocks) and it was an experience I will never forget - so surreal. I understood that the ground moved in an earthquake before, but there is a different level of understanding when you’ve felt the earth betray you en masse like that.
I’ve also been in a couple of tornados, which were also scary af, but in a more normal sort of way. They are amazingly loud and the sandpaper wind is so much more painful than I would have expected.
Interesting— growing up in California, I feel differently. I’ve never seen a tornado before but I think I’d be way more spooked by that than an earthquake. But I’ve been through plenty of earthquakes, including in the middle of the night when they woke me up, so they don’t really phase me. The only scary thing is that, unlike weather, you don’t know they’re coming. But they’re also over pretty quick (usually).
When I lived in San Jose as a kid, I experienced several earthquakes. Including the really big one that hit San Francisco in 1989. I remember it hitting while I was walking home from a friend’s house and it was strong enough to keep knocking me down.
This is mine too. I was six and lived in San Jose also. I don’t remember the earthquake itself but I have very vivid memories of the rest of the day, talking to neighbors, cooking dinner with the propane camp stove, candles, and hazy TV after midnight when the power finally came back on.
Loma Prieta gang rise up! I was in Los Gatos swinging across a set of monkey bars on a playground. I remember being able to see literal waves in the ground.
