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Pony Talk => Off Topic => Topic started by: Loa on July 30, 2022, 04:22:49 PM

Title: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Loa on July 30, 2022, 04:22:49 PM
Living in the Shaky Isles, I've had more than my fair share of earthquakes!

What about you?
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Leave a Whisper on July 30, 2022, 04:35:28 PM
A few earthquakes but nothing seriously bad, that is I wasn't living close to the center and caught some strong aftershocks.

Once or twice I thought we'd hafta evacuate from a fire that came pretty close. The air was smokey and you could see ash falling from the sky.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: BlackCurtains on July 30, 2022, 05:46:09 PM
When I lived in Wisconsin, a tornado chased my sister and I down the road in her Camaro. The sky behind us was pitch black and the funnel came down right on the road. You're supposed to find shelter under a bridge if you can and we were speeding toward one when it dissipated. Scary as heck though. I must've been like, 13? Then there were the blizzards. But we were used to that. My last year there, it snowed so much in just a couple of days, we were literally snowed in. We couldn't open the front door because of a huge snowdrift. I actually had to climb out a window and clear it so my mom could go to work. Yes, she still had to work and I still had to go to school :lol: Just another winter in WI.

One earthquake, also in Wisconsin. It shook the house but not to the point where stuff was falling off the walls or anything.

I've been in my fair share of tropical storms and hurricanes, thanks. The worse one was tropical storm Gaston, whatever year it was... 2003? We lived in a single wide trailer with a tin roof. It was so LOUD and there were a few times I thought we were going to tip over. Also, in South Carolina, the outer bands on hurricane Katrina made it to us and they were extremely dangerous. I mean, that's how gigantic that hurricane was - we were feeling it several states away. Since I've lived in Florida, the ones that have been through haven't been so bad.

I also felt and saw the aftermath of a house explode from a gas leak and lightning hitting a telephone pole outside my window.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: pinkkittywinks on July 30, 2022, 06:03:43 PM
I have experienced the odd earthquake that has been known to happen in the UK, but it is nothing compared to other places.

There has been serious flooding in my local area, I have been lucky in escaping it due to my location on a hillside.

I was once in a house when it was struck by lightning and it had no conductor >_< but that isn't what I'd consider a huge natural disaster.

Love pkw xxx
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: stjarne on July 30, 2022, 07:23:52 PM
thankfully, pretty much never. no tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, floods, tsunamis- that sort. me & my family DID endure hurricane katrina back in '05 though when we lived in florida. i was only 4 at the time lol so i don't remember any of it but we were fine. we've got some old photos of all the wreckage though and i think we were really lucky :shocked:
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Ponybookworm on July 30, 2022, 10:47:08 PM
Nothing life-changing, but have sometimes seen it flooded enough round here for the carpark at the Co-op to need draining. However, most of the residences are unaffected, especially mine, being as it is on a slope with the sea at the bottom. In the past I've seen fields flooded & fellow students stranded on the opposite side of floods preventing them from reaching the bus to school, but again, never been personally affected
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: tikibirds on July 31, 2022, 04:36:25 AM
I used to live in Alaska. Alaska is part of the "ring of fire" so lots of earthquakes. The biggest was a 7.9
Same with my 2 months in Japan. Gotta say, NOT A FAN of them.
Most places I lived - hurricanes or typhoons are the biggest issue.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Beth3346 on July 31, 2022, 06:22:45 AM
i has in a hurricane when i lived in Houston. It was not a super powerful one but still a pretty scary storm. we lived pretty far inland so we didn't need to evacuate or anything. but the wind and rain from hurricanes is legit loud and scary. i recommend avoiding if possible. and i love thunderstorms. but hurricanes i avoid. i moved cities to avoid hurricanes. though as least with hurricanes i can see it coming and get out of the way. i don't think i would do well in an earthquake zone. but i guess it's something people get used to.

i've also been through a few floods. when i was younger we had several where our house flooded and pretty much had to be redone inside. also not recommended. always carry flood insurance if you're a homeowner. even if you're not in a flood plain. repairing a flood damaged house is super costly.

also the drought we're in right now is probably a natural disaster. though less obvious for most people. also the ice storm we had in 2021. Texas is certainly not a dull place to live!
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: lovesbabysquirmy on July 31, 2022, 06:38:41 AM
yes.... tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, wildfires
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: LadyAmalthea on July 31, 2022, 08:08:22 AM
Nothing exactly disastrous, but I have felt an earthquake once in 2007 or 2008-ish. It woke me up in the middle of the night and I thought someone was breaking into my house because I could hear things rattling on the shelves. It felt like my house was sitting on top of a washing machine on spin cycle and it lasted a really long time, like a couple of minutes.

A flood in the summer of 2007 took out my garden-level loft apartment. I had been out with friends, and drove home through 6 inches of water, only to come home and couldn't open my door, because you had to walk down 6 or 7 steps into an alcove, and the alcove was half full of water. The water got in of course, and flooded it. My friends called me for help, because they were floating down the street in their car.

The summer of 2003 we had a microburst, which is like a tornado, but a different wind pattern. It was weird because it was right in the middle of the city. But it shut that part of the city down for days; there was no power and no one could drive through the side streets because of downed trees. My 2 cars were parked on the street, and a giant tree came down right in between them...I was lucky.

Post Merge: July 31, 2022, 08:18:09 AM

One earthquake, also in Wisconsin. It shook the house but not to the point where stuff was falling off the walls or anything.


BC, I'm curious about where you used to live in WI...I wonder if it was the same earthquake I felt when I was living in northern IL. You don't have to say for privacy reasons if you don't want to, but was it around 2008-ish?
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: BlackCurtains on July 31, 2022, 09:02:15 AM
One earthquake, also in Wisconsin. It shook the house but not to the point where stuff was falling off the walls or anything.


BC, I'm curious about where you used to live in WI...I wonder if it was the same earthquake I felt when I was living in northern IL. You don't have to say for privacy reasons if you don't want to, but was it around 2008-ish?

No, I left Wisconsin in 2002. It was probably in the 90s. I was a kid. My hometown is Kenosha :)
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: cosmospanda on July 31, 2022, 09:13:00 AM
I live in Alaska, where earthquakes are quite frequent. The largest I felt was an 8.1 just last summer. There was tsunami warnings and people had to evacuate the coastal town I was in at the time. Before this, in 2018, we had a 7.1 with the epicenter 10 miles from where I lived. It was worse feeling than the 8.1, because I was closer to it and the soil was different. (The 8.1 hit off Kodiak, so we didn't get the full affect in Seward, up north. But in Palmer and Wasilla, we felt the 7.1...well.) They are frequent here, like I said, since we live along the ring of fire, so most of us don't worry if it's an M 4 or below. Once it picks up above that, you should watch out for a sec, see if it'll actually progress 🤣
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Koudoawaia on July 31, 2022, 09:49:11 AM
I have yes. In 2009 the area of Eastern Kentucky I was living in at the time  had a 100 year flood and it was the first flood I'd ever experienced because I grew up in Northern Kentucky and my parents' house is on top of a very high hill so we never had to worry about flooding there. I will never forget that night or the aftermath. I am so glad my husband is a night owl because I was asleep when the flooding was happening.  He came into the bedroom and woke me up and we hightailed it out of the  house and from that time forward it made us extremely nervous when it rained heavily though fortunately our old  house there is up on three blocks and water never made it  into the house. Only our  yard flooded. It did do a lot of damage to the first floor of my in laws' house next door though. That area is very flood prone. Now thankfully that area was  not touched in the flooding that devastated Eastern Kentucky this past week.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: toyjunky on July 31, 2022, 11:09:21 PM
They are frequent here, like I said, since we live along the ring of fire, so most of us don't worry if it's an M 4 or below. Once it picks up above that, you should watch out for a sec, see if it'll actually progress 🤣

So true, I'm in California, and usually it's just like "Oh, an earthquake....no big deal" for the smaller ones. There is always that momentary question sometimes though of "Wait, it's still going..." or "getting a bit stronger this time... maybe I should start heading for some cover".

I have been evacuated for wildfires once or twice when I have been in the local mountains at my grandparent's cabin (about 5,000 feet elevation - about a 30-45minute drive to the bottom of the mountain) however that was more of a recommended voluntary evacuation than mandatory at the point we left as the fire was above where we were and fires will typically burn up a mountain not retreat down, but wind can shift them quickly. My aunt did have a close call though about 4 years ago, same area where the cabin was, where a fire was started along the base of the mountain and various points on the roadway up (it was arson, they did catch him) and the fire went up the mountainside and the planes dropped water/fire retardant to try and make break lines like they usually do to try and contain an area. The firefighters made a stand at the edges of the small town and were able to keep it /turn it away from the main part. Her street was fine, but the houses on the street behind her they couldn't save and half of them were burned. I went up for a visit about a month afterwards and the entire mountainside was streaked black (from the burn) or red (the retardant). It was eerie.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: cosmospanda on July 31, 2022, 11:23:56 PM
They are frequent here, like I said, since we live along the ring of fire, so most of us don't worry if it's an M 4 or below. Once it picks up above that, you should watch out for a sec, see if it'll actually progress 🤣

So true, I'm in California, and usually it's just like "Oh, an earthquake....no big deal" for the smaller ones. There is always that momentary question sometimes though of "Wait, it's still going..." or "getting a bit stronger this time... maybe I should start heading for some cover".

EXACTLY!

If it lasts much more than a few seconds, usually a good idea to get out of the way. When we got a m6 last year, I stood there like a dork, waiting to see what happened. My cats ran under the bed and couch and the neighbors ran out of the building. I was scared lol but I was like, woah. 👀
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: LadyAmalthea on August 01, 2022, 05:33:43 AM
One earthquake, also in Wisconsin. It shook the house but not to the point where stuff was falling off the walls or anything.


BC, I'm curious about where you used to live in WI...I wonder if it was the same earthquake I felt when I was living in northern IL. You don't have to say for privacy reasons if you don't want to, but was it around 2008-ish?

No, I left Wisconsin in 2002. It was probably in the 90s. I was a kid. My hometown is Kenosha :)

Oh okay! I'm familiar with Kenosha. Haven't been there in years, but my husband works there often. We're closer to Madison.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Taffeta on August 04, 2022, 04:18:30 AM
If multiple minor earthquakes count, then yes, otherwise I don't think so. We've had very severe flooding near us but not near enough to impact my neighbourhood - the river is some eight or nine miles away I think. The strongest earthquake I remember was around 5 on the scale - there have been a few more around 3 or so too. For some reason this area gets mini quakes from time to time.

Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: SilverLinedStars on September 08, 2022, 04:52:03 PM
I had my share of hurricanes when I still lived in Florida. It's funny - people who've never experienced one all say "YAY hurricane party!!" But no one talks about the 2 weeks of no power that follow in a Florida summer... It was still an interesting experience.  When I still lived in Virginia, we had a couple of notable blizzards & I can remember that was pretty wild even though I was so young. And now in Texas I've seen a couple tornados and we had that crazy freeze a year or two ago & this summer was stupid hot. I've moved a lot and I feel like I'm making my rounds with experiences, haha.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: invaderhorizongreen on October 22, 2022, 01:08:56 PM
Closet for me was a flood that tore up or road, and the road sounded like a river in the middle of the night. I used to live on a hill, that was something and the road above ours looked like it had been bombed. I was also in a glen once when a thunder storm came in, I saw lightning touch the water.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Ponyfan on October 22, 2022, 03:24:42 PM
If being caught in a severe thunderstorm that had winds strong enough to turn a semi over and watching the windshield get hit by baseball or bigger size hail counts, then yes.


Ponyfan
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Harmonie on October 24, 2022, 08:06:21 PM
I've been through some minor natural disasters. Thankfully nothing really bad.

The two I'd say were the worst:

August 2016: A severe thunderstorm was on the way. Not a big deal it of itself persay. But it hit a bit harder than expected. Right after it passed over us a tornado was spotted. We think that maybe that tornado went over us. It was a very minor tornado that formed, but whatever happened, it blew down a small tree.

December 2007: The ice storm. It was a day plus of freezing rain. It's been so long, I don't remember all of the details. I do remember that the temperatures dropped below freezing long before the meteorologists expected and it then became a major ice storm. I remember the first night sleeping to a thunderstorm, but it was freezing rain. A bizarre feeling to hear thunder and rain, but it's icy.

The storm knocked out power for weeks for some. For my family, we were a little luckier, it was only a couple of days IIRC. Most significantly for us was the damage to the trees. Large branches fell all over the place and it took a while to clean them. One of our neighbors trees fell on one of our trees which fell on one of our cars. Thankfully they were smaller trees and didn't do any substantial damage.

To this day, I still remember that sound of branches snapping from the weight of the ice.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: DemonicSymphony on November 08, 2022, 09:39:23 PM
I think the year that takes the cake was 2011 where I went through a severe tornado outbreak including an ef5 too close for comfort, followed by an earthquake, followed by a funnel cloud that never touched down going right overhead, followed by a hurricane.

It was, uh, a year that's for sure.

Several ice storms when I was younger.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: StarryEmerald24 on November 09, 2022, 09:28:05 AM
South Carolina gets hurricane season every year but it usually doesn't do much to noncoastal areas of the state. It at least hasn't damaged my area of the state in my lifetime. Edit: That I remember.

I live on a hill, so when we had historic flooding in 2015, I knew areas that were severely flooded but my yard just had a few puddles. I actually was walking around the capital just a day or two before trying to do a "Ponies Around..." kind of photoshoot in the sprinkling rain. Not many people were around so I had free roam. ^-^'

Then there are earthquakes but they are never anything bad in my area. Everything vibrates for two seconds and then that's basically it.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: BlackCurtains on November 10, 2022, 05:11:15 AM
I can add another hurricane to my list. As devastating as it was/is, I got so lucky with it that it wasn't a big deal. Well, it was/is afterwards because so many things were damaged. I'm having a hard time getting my medicine refilled because the pharmacy is so backed up. Pre-Ian it took about 2-3 days but it's taking 1-2 weeks. There is still a shortage on some items in stores too. And there is still a ton of debris laying about. Lots of homes with tarps. Broken fences everywhere.

Right at this moment former hurricane Nicole is a tropical storm now and to the north of my area. It rained all night and it's windy. Apparently when it gets closer to the coast we'll get heavy thunderstorms but that won't be until later tonight. Behind it is nice cool air, so I can open the windows again.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: dragglereeka on November 17, 2022, 10:17:51 AM
I experienced a pretty bad flood! It was Storm Desmond in the UK in December 2015.
I was at University at the time living in a house share in Carlisle. I was walking back from class when the storm started, the rain was flooding the streets before our eyes.
After a night of non stop rain and wind shaking the house, I looked out of the window and the whole street and ground floor was submerged. (I was on 3rd floor, thank goodness.) The river's banks had collapsed, cars floating, dead rats, Christmas decorations everywhere :( It was really upsetting and still haunts me to be honest.

I had to grab some clothes in a bag and be rescued via a canoe!

The whole experience was very humbling, I thought of when natural disasters have happened around the world and how grateful I was that we had aid etc. Also that it was just a rented temporary home and I could just go home to my family, whereas my neighbours had lost everything.

Now every winter I always make sure we have flooding prep just in case. It worries me that with climate change, this will happen more often.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Shystar06 on December 20, 2022, 08:45:28 PM
I was there for the "October Blizzard" in Nebraska.

Our entire neighborhood was at the bottom of what we called "Deadman's hill", so called because you were indeed a dead man or woman if you went down it at speed after a severe rain or snow. We got an entire WEEK off of school which was marvelous until the tree in the yard fell toward the house. I measured 4 inches from the top branch to the front window to the living room where we had just been playing darts.

Much more recently my infant daughter slept completely through the first "Snownado" in decades. The tornado sirens went off while her grandfather was visiting and one of them is right outside our building. She slept through everything without a single peep but made sure to keep us up at night as usual!
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: StarSwirl05 on February 23, 2023, 12:23:44 PM
Been through a few:
1. Hurricane Sandy in 2012, worst so far (3ish days without power)
2. Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020(?) (3 days without power)
3. Earthquake in 2012(?) that was located in Washington DC
4. 2nd Earthquake in 2016, though weaker than the other one
5. Severe storms at various times
6. Snowstorms at various times
7. Flooding (though none of the cases have been directly impacting where I live)
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: invaderhorizongreen on March 13, 2023, 03:00:33 PM
I was in the ice storm/blizzard of 1993 as a kid four feet of snow and no power for a week, we had a wood stove at least.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: brightberry on March 13, 2023, 03:40:57 PM
No... not really.  I was in Texas for the 2021 snowstorm/power outage but that was less natural and more government wasn't prepared.  Other places would have been just fine.  There was an ice storm this year and we could hear tree limbs crashing all night long.  I don't think there was a tree that was spared.  Both of these incidents are really unusual for the area.

I am terrified of wildfires though!  It's one of the reasons why I don't want to move further out into more undeveloped places.

I was also in California for a small quake.  It happened in the middle of the night and I was too tired to fully experience it.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Koudoawaia on March 14, 2023, 08:09:36 AM
Was in a natural disaster two weeks ago this Friday. We had hurricane force winds here that day up to 76 mph and it caused a good amount of damage in my area but thankfully none to our house.
Title: Re: Have you ever been in a natural disaster?
Post by: Baby Crumpet on March 15, 2023, 04:06:57 AM
I have, but nothing severely life-threatening or particularly notable. I grew up spending a lot of time in Cyprus (it's where my family is from) and as a result I experienced a lot of earthquakes. They were enough to feel the house shake, but I don't actually particularly remember them as I was too young.
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