Hurricanes and earthquakes and wildfires, oh my! What’s your natural disaster story?

[fatalrendezvous]

With Hurricane Dorian cruising along the east coast (and hopefully not doing too much damage), now seemed like an apt time to talk natural disasters.

These can be scary, terrible things! Sometimes they have end up badly, and other times they're just a scare, but MOST people have experienced one in some fashion.

What's the closest experience you've had with a natural disaster?

When I was in undergrad, my family had a close call with a pretty bad brushfire. It just so happened that I was out at a mock trial tournament where I was competing, but I got a call from my family that we were being ordered to evacuate our homes. The fires were visible from our windows on the hills near our house, maybe no more than a few miles away. My parents were evacuating and told me there wasn't much time to grab any important belongings and get the fuck out.

When I had an opportunity, I found our coach (who was also coordinating the tournament, so he had a lot on his plate). I tried to tell him what was going on to ask if I could leave. He was upset about something that was going wrong, and rudely brushed me off which is totally out of character for him.

I cried. I'm normally a pretty composed person but I couldn't keep a hold over how helpless I felt and I just broke down. My teammates encouraged me to just go, and that they'd talk to him about it, so I left. By the time I could even get home the area was already blocked off so I couldn't even get any of my stuff.

My parents ended up checking into a nearby hotel rather than staying at the disaster shelters that had been set up at my old high school. Fortunately our house wasn't damaged, but the house and the entire yard were covered in ash. It took months for it all to wash away, and for weeks when it rained you could still smell the ash.

Next day of competition my coach pulled me aside and gave me a heartfelt apology, which I accepted, but even to this day, years later, I haven't fully forgiven.

What about you guys? What are your closest calls with natural disasters?

 

[PoetLore]

I was living in northern Alabama when an earthquake hit the area. I was working third shift and asleep in the trailer I was renting. The quake was strong enough to knock the trailer off its footing and left the front half on the ground but the back half in the air. I was, of course, sleeping in the front bedroom and nope...I did not wake up until someone started banging on the sides of the trailer to see if I was ok.

What proceeded afterward was a rather entertaining and lengthy trip to the side door because the whole trailer was no an uphill climb. I had to grab the coffee table and stand it on the wall and climb it, and let me tell you..I am by no means a climber of any kind. So...about an hour later I was at the door and luckily the had a ladder there for em to climb down. so yeah...I survived...but there were some rather embarrassing videos of me circulating at the time. No honor among friends it seems...

 

[Diana]

There's a lot of tornados here. >:[ So my closest is def when they TAKE PIECES OF MY HOUSE. T__T A couple years ago it stole some siding, of which we still don't have fixed. And this season the trees fell on my house.

Pls enjoy these before and after pics. This week we finally fixed the leaky roof. O:<

Spoiler

 

[Dipper]

An earthquake woke me up from a nap once.