The other day there was a bad storm here that freaked me out as I was laying in bed. Basically lightning every half second (this never happens) thunder and wind. I was mostly scared for the wind because I have some weak trees that need culled and I dont want them on my house.
So it was scaring me and I prayed the storm would not come closer. It didnt.
It scared me more than when I lived in the apartments, and a tornado literally came down my street and wrecked many nearby businesses.
I never knew a tornado was happening. I woke up in the middle of the night and wondered why the weather was so bad. I tried to look out the window but no luck and went back to bed.
Woke up to destruction.
But not as scary as the storm the other night. I have more to lose.
So, this is the weather thread.
What is the scariest weather or natural disaster you lived through?
Ever? I was in my parents house around 1991 when a tornado came through our "area" in Medina County. The twister touched down 7-12 miles from our house, but it felt like it was going down our street. That house didn't have a basement and I was there alone. Kind of freaked me out.
Recently? About 7-8 years ago a wicked storm came through downtown Chicago. It went from daylight to near complete darkness in 15 minutes at 5pm in June. We live on the 11th floor of a 18-story high-rise. Our corner unit has floor-to-ceiling windows. They were bowing in and out like crazy. I thought they were going to pop. I moved my kid and sitter into our hallway.
I suppose the Chicago snow storm 8 years ago might be on here, but we were fine. All those people that got trapped on LSD had to have been terrified.
“...Iguodala to Curry, back to Iguodala, up for the layup! Oh! Blocked by James! LeBron James with the rejection!”
It had to be back in 1988 or 1989. I was managing a convenience store, and the owner called in a panic. He told me to get everyone down into the basement. Workers and customers. Don't worry about locking up, just get everyone to safety.
The tornado touched down on the street behind the store. It touched down in the middle of the street at one end, ripped up trees, and went back up before it hit the house at the end of the block. When I went home, after we closed, i drove back there, and it was horrifying. No homes were harmed, and no one was killed. That was a real gift from God.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
I lived with my mother and older sister on Lake Avenue in Lakewood in a three story apartment in 1969. We lived maybe 1/10 of a mile from Lakewood Park which is right on Lake Erie.
On July 4th, the Park was packed. Suddenly very severe storms hit from off the lake and Lake Avenue was flooded with people and cars leaving the park.
My sister and I were perched backwards on a couch looking out a window that looked down at Lake avenue below. The wind and rain were torrential and there were constant vivid lightning strikes. The street was jammed with people and cars.
All of a sudden our phone rang. My sister got up to answer it and in the ~1 minute she was gone, a huge bolt of lightning struck a big tree directly across from our apartment and the tree fell into the street blocking traffic. I saw the whole amazing thing.
One of those amazing coincidences in my life - and when my sister returned to the couch she said “Huh, the phone is not working.”
Two young girls were killed in the park that day.
The next day my sister and I toured several blocks of Lakewood. She took (and I believe still has) several pictures of the dozens of giant oaks that littered Lakewood’s side streets.
Not my scariest weather encounter though. That's probably when I've been out on a golf course far from the clubhouse when a thunderstorm hit. I was definitely worried about my potential exposure to a lightning strike.
March, 1993 ... Storm of the Century. We were driving south on I-75, and got stranded in Jellico TN, then again in Dalton Ga. Did a triple-360 spin out few miles north of Atlanta. Finally was able to shift out of 4-wheel drive around Macon. We pulled into Clearwater Beach a day late for our reservation, but they had plenty of available rooms. Slept like the dead that night, and woke up the next morning to some jackass kids playing Marco Polo in the hotel pool. THAT was annoying.
Ice storm a few years ago put down an inch of ice over everything and living in mountains at the time and having trees fall constantly from the weight for a few days, all around the house jarring you awake was a big scary. pulled the electric from the house. Beautiful but it was scary.
I was crossing the North Atlantic just ahead of this, aboard a narrow, shallow-drafted ship with no keel and a flat bottom - literally bobbing like a cork in a bathtub.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
i saw a Tornado in oklahoma, broad daylight. scariest crap ever.
screw that noise. that forever turned me off on the idea of living in those areas. Tornado alley is a no go.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
i saw a Tornado in oklahoma, broad daylight. scariest crap ever.
screw that noise. that forever turned me off on the idea of living in those areas. Tornado alley is a no go.
+1
Being in Chicago, I suppose we're technically in tornado alley, same with Ohio, but I think of the core area of Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, into Nebraska.
We're moving out to the burbs soon, I wonder if I should get some tornado insurance (assuming they'd pay it anyway seeing is how they'd blame the thunderstorm or the debris, not the tornado itself).
“...Iguodala to Curry, back to Iguodala, up for the layup! Oh! Blocked by James! LeBron James with the rejection!”
Not my scariest weather encounter though. That's probably when I've been out on a golf course far from the clubhouse when a thunderstorm hit. I was definitely worried about my potential exposure to a lightning strike.
Ya shoulda disregarded the thunderstorm/lightning and played out your round with just your 1 iron.
I've been through plenty of horrible snow storms, thunderstorms, and had tornado warnings around but, and this might one day be to my detriment, I usually don't freak out and seek shelter.
Worst one was in 1996 when my wife was pregnant (and that is probably the part that made this the worst one is that I wasn't just afraid for myself)... she and I were driving through Alexandria, VA and they were calling for bad storms.. no big deal... The wind got worse that I had seen it, trees were bending sideways, water made visibility horrible, wind was sliding my Jeep back and forth on the road.. it was horrible. She started freaking out so I pulled into a parking garage, knowing it was all concrete and had concrete/masonry stair towers, so we hunkered down in a block stair tower with about 8 other people. We heard the tornado that the storm spawned but it never touched down near us, it went right over us.. about half a mile further it touched down, did a little damage, bounced over the Potomac River and did considerable damage in Southern Maryland, below DC... that is probably the most scared I've ever been of a weather event.
I was crossing the North Atlantic just ahead of this, aboard a narrow, shallow-drafted ship with no keel and a flat bottom - literally bobbing like a cork in a bathtub.
That's a lot scarier than sleeping in your car with the engine running for heat, and setting your watch alarm to go off every 1/2 hour so you could go out and kick the snow away from your tailpipe.
I read today that the storm of '93 killed 318 people across the eastern part of the country. It spanned from well into Canada all the way down to Cuba.
March, 1993 ... Storm of the Century. We were driving south on I-75, and got stranded in Jellico TN, then again in Dalton Ga. Did a triple-360 spin out few miles north of Atlanta. Finally was able to shift out of 4-wheel drive around Macon. We pulled into Clearwater Beach a day late for our reservation, but they had plenty of available rooms. Slept like the dead that night, and woke up the next morning to some jackass kids playing Marco Polo in the hotel pool. THAT was annoying.
Dalton is about 25 miles south of where I live. We got 18 inches of snow. Power was out for 4 days.
The worst was the Tornado outbreak in April of 2011. Just wave after wave of very severe storms. Four tornado touchdowns in the area. One in the neighborhood. Massive trees splinterd. At one point my wife and I were in the "bunker" and felt the air sucked out of the house. About 1/4 mile away to the west is where it hit and splintered trees and damaged 8-10 homes, and 1/4 mile east, on the same path it wiped out 6-7 homes.
The tornado jumped over our house. It bounced 2-3 more times on it's path with the same results. Us feeling the loss of air pressure was when it bounced over us.
No doubt, that's it.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
I was crossing the North Atlantic just ahead of this, aboard a narrow, shallow-drafted ship with no keel and a flat bottom - literally bobbing like a cork in a bathtub.
That's a lot scarier than sleeping in your car with the engine running for heat, and setting your watch alarm to go off every 1/2 hour so you could go out and kick the snow away from your tailpipe.
I read today that the storm of '93 killed 318 people across the eastern part of the country. It spanned from well into Canada all the way down to Cuba.
I think being stuck in that car is scarier. The ship was built to be at sea.
I remember seeing the news reports of that storm posted outside the mess decks; everyone was slightly panicked for family back home in the Norfolk/Little Creek area that just got walloped.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
For me it would probably have to be in the summer 2012. At the time I was at some internship in the Dayton area in a building that was 1 floor and it was getting pretty close to the end of the day when people would start getting ready to go home. All of a sudden it started to get really dark outside, windy, and rainy. It wasn't just normal windy, it was a lot stronger than that, outside it was almost like some kind of mini hurricane and at one point you almost didn't want to stand by the windows and watch because you felt that could get blown out.
Since we were a small group working there, we all waited until things died down a bit to go outside and go home. When we did go outside there were leaves, some tree branches in different areas. The place where I was staying near Wright state university had its power out for several days along with others. Some roads were closed due to down trees and such. If I remember right, we thought it was the remnants of a hurricane or tropical storm of some kind.
The boat I work on was forced off the dock in Charleston, SC right before Hurricane Matthew came through.
The storm itself didn't end up being scary, but I was writing just in case emails right before leaving the dock. Had we broken down out there, instead of beating the storm North (or had the storm picked up speed), things would have really sucked.
Otherwise, I've been through some bad ones at sea, none in particular that I remember that much. But I've been through some bad ones that probably should have had me scared (and I probably just didn't know any better)
Ever been in a propeller plane, flying around the side of a mountain to your left with jagged edges, a bright deep blue sea to your right, and wind forcibly pushing your plane in every single direction imaginable? 35mph crosswinds at the surface ain't no joke.
Yeah, that's not fun. I'm not sure why we flew out to the village that day, but our pilot landed us just fine. We were the only two planes that day.
"Ever been in a propeller plane, flying around the side of a mountain to your left with jagged edges, a bright deep blue sea to your right, and wind forcibly pushing your plane in every single direction imaginable?"
Ever been in a propeller plane, flying around the side of a mountain to your left with jagged edges, a bright deep blue sea to your right, and wind forcibly pushing your plane in every single direction imaginable? 35mph crosswinds at the surface ain't no joke.
Yeah, that's not fun. I'm not sure why we flew out to the village that day, but our pilot landed us just fine. We were the only two planes that day.
Approx 12 of us were in a small, 16 seat/8 each side 2 prop plane flying over the mountains back to the airport in Seattle from the Wenatchee/Lake Chelan area. On the way out there just a terrific, beautifull flight and view. Mt St. Helens, etc. On the way back, oy vey. Approx 10 minutes into the flight, at night, the plane was being tossed and turned big time and being hit with high winds and torrential rain. It was also being pushed up and down I would guess 75-100' every so often. Imo I coulda reached out the window and grabbed lightning bolts. I was in the front row right behind the co-pilot. During the storm, a red light on one of the instrument panels started flashing with a loud beep on each flash. Beep, beep, beep, etc, etc. After throwing a switch or 6, nothing. Beep, beep, beep, etc. The pilot and co-pilot looked with some real serious concern at one another and the co-pilot reached into a compartment and pulled out some type of instruction manual and started searching/reading it. After about what seemed like 10 minutes but was prob like 1.5mins, the co-pilot started throwing 5-6 switches and the flashing/beeping stopped.
I didn't need one, but 5 guys used vomit bags that flight.
I used to love to fly. I worked for Delta Airlines and flew all around the world on my flight benefits.
Then, there was this really, really bad flight to Chicago. The turbulence was so bad it broke the hydraulics system on the plane. Kinda need that to steer and put the wheels down.
The pilot informed us they activated the backup hydrolics system but "dont be concerned about emergency personal at the airport as a precaution"
wtf? We got to O'Hare and there was this loooooong line of firetrucks and ambulances waiting for us.
(waiting for us to crash)
Never again!
I have flying phobia now because of that. I cant fly unless heavily sedated/drunk. I freak out.
It sucks donkey balls because I would love to go to Europe again, but I cant.
I was teaching in E.Cleveland at an alternative school. I came down E. 71st and it was sunny as can be. I made a right [can't remember the name of the street] that would take me to 77 S. I saw the sky on the horizon was completely black even though my car was bathed in sunshine. I knew that was a bad mix. I was driving a BMW 5 series at the time and I had all 4 windows and the sunroof open. I had a bunch of school papers on my front seat. I knew that it was going to be bad, but there was really no where to pull off as I traveled over the overpass. The storm moved fast..........there was a lot of noise.....the car rocked..........the papers and other small items got sucked out of the sunroof. It all happened so fast and before the rain hit. Kinda freaky.
The other one was when I left my wife for a bit and moved to the Outer Banks in NC. I took the job right before school started. I had to stay in a mobile home until a house I wanted became available. Of course, w/in 2 weeks, a hurricane came through and the Outer Banks gets nailed like no other location in the nation by hurricanes due to the shape of the coastline. They said to evacuate and of course, I said....screw that, I'm staying. It got pretty crazy. It's the worst in the dark. [censored] was hitting the trailer and at one point, a tree branch actually penetrated the side wall of the mobile home and was jutting into the living room. Luckily, I was in bed when that went down. Y'all, there was this little boat outside and I brought it inside and was prepared to float away on it. LOL.
Crazy story about this event. Cape Hatteras has the ocean on one side and the Sound on the other. A sound is a water area that separates a barrier island and the mainland. The hurricane sucked all of the water out of the Sound and pounded the ocean side coast. I walked down to the Sound and the locals were picking up fish from the now waterless Sound. Big stuff like Blue Marlins.
Did y'all know that is where Black Beard had his base [for lack of a better word.} The seas are treacherous around the Outer Banks. There are all kinds of ship wrecks and you can go diving and see them. Pretty cool.
I used to love to fly. I worked for Delta Airlines and flew all around the world on my flight benefits.
Then, there was this really, really bad flight to Chicago. The turbulence was so bad it broke the hydraulics system on the plane. Kinda need that to steer and put the wheels down.
The pilot informed us they activated the backup hydrolics system but "dont be concerned about emergency personal at the airport as a precaution"
wtf? We got to O'Hare and there was this loooooong line of firetrucks and ambulances waiting for us.
(waiting for us to crash)
Never again!
I have flying phobia now because of that. I cant fly unless heavily sedated/drunk. I freak out.
It sucks donkey balls because I would love to go to Europe again, but I cant.
Nothing to do with weather but.......
Business related, a group of approx 8 of us went to Costa Rica for 6 days. Costa Rica is roughly the size of West Virginia.
On the west coast in Punteranas we stayed for 2 days in huts above cliffs overlooking the Pacific O. Just breathtaking.
On the 3rd day we gathered our luggage and boarded our air conditioned, cervesa on ice loaded state of the art mini bus and headed to the airport to fly to Limon on the Carribbean coast. We started rollin and after 25-30mins we were travelin down a dusty, bumpy dirt road with 15'×20'ish sized closely spaced grass huts w/basically no windows, etc, 75' from the road on each side.
The bus comes to a stop and we're like.. whats goin on?
Our guide, a local named Luis: "get out". Us: "huh"? Luis: "planes come soon". Us: "where's the runway"? "Where's the ATC tower"? "Where's the radar"? Luis: "get out, planes coming".
By now, 3/4ths of the huts on each side had the locals looking out their doors and/or looking out their windows. We get out and Luis points and far in the distance there were 3 single engine prop planes roarin towards us.
Now we are just a bunch of stupid americans with our aligator emblem'd shirts, dress shorts, and luggage, standin in the middle of this dirt road with our bus rollin off into the sunrise and the locals just eyeballin us like we were the days entertainment.
Well, the planes were about a 1/2 mile out and screamin towards us but they roared 60ish feet over us, buzzed us, but never landed. They turned around and buzzed us again. Now, more locals came out to watch the show.
Well, it turned out that the reason they buzzed us was to clear/scare 10-12 cows and goats off the road so they could land. There was no doubt in our minds these 3 planes just came from runnin 100's of keys of coke somewhere.
The planes landed and we jammed our luggage into compartments under the plane.
I was in the 1st plane to take off. The pilot throws the throttle forward and our 1st plane goes screamin down this dirt road. The locals are enjoyin the show. After about 30secs the pilot immediately pulls back on the throttle and we jerk forward. WHY? A few cows and goats got back on the road.
We ended up paying 2 12-13yo local kids 60 colonnes(about a dollar each at that time) to keep the cows and goats off the road.
This is probably due to the typhoon I witnessed when I lived on Guam. I was somewhere between 3 and 5, and this Cat5 storm blew right over top of us. I remember it being almost completely gray outside, as the rain was so hard you could barely see 10 feet out the window. We lived in base housing on top of a cliff, and waves were breaking over the cliff side. It had to be at least 100ft above the water line. Right at midday, the eye of the typhoon passed directly overhead, and we had an hour of sunlight and calm winds. Us kids were sent outside to play, as we'd already gone though 8 hours of storm. We had clear blue sky overhead, and walls of doom off in the distance surrounding us. Right before the back wall of the storm hit, we were brought back inside. That base housing stood up well to the storm, considering we were right in the middle of it.
In the aftermath, the storm revealed previously hidden machine gun embankments the Japanese had built during WWII, and devastated other parts of the island.
Wow that was a close call. That had to just miss you in Beavercreek. We heard stories of people finding debris and cancelled checks from a Xenia bank as far North as Akron, Ohio
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
I remember a flight from a small airport in CT (Brainard Field) to Atlantic City for ~ 12 hours of casino play. Probably about 1989.
It was winter time and the flight back was in a heavy freezing rain storm.
It was on a tiny passenger plane.
Of course I had been drinking all day and was not the least worried about crashing. (I think I was more concerned with the lack of a bathroom on the plane)
The plane landed fine. The airstrip was absolutely coated with ice and the walk from the plane back to the office (“terminal”) was a little treacherous.
This is the actual Brainard Field single airstrip.
Bit late to the party on this one. But, this year we had an ice storm, which cancelled school. It then started to rain the following day so we decided to go get some pizza. Coming home we could see a major road in Portland was closed as it cuts through the forest and there are tall trees on either side. We eventually went around and joined the road and we saw cops below, assuming it was an accident. We then heard a mighty crack and literally within 50 feet of our car a big tree crashed on the road with a massive thud. We stopped and turned around towards the cops. They told us the trees all around us were weakened by the weight of the ice and the thawing rain was adding more weight so they were breaking. Cop then said he "did two tours of Iraq and this is what it sounded like at night" (cracks and bangs echoing from the forest as trees were snapping and falling all around us). We eventually got home and literally listened all night to trees breaking and smashing to the ground. Woke up the next day and there must have been 15-20 huge trees down across a three lane road/major thoroughfare from east-west across the city and probably hundreds of trees in the forest damaged or had fallen. The road remained closed for 3 days as they chopped up the debris and removed it.
I have lived in KC, MO. and experienced tornado warnings, blizzards in Cleveland and Albany, NY and 70+mph gale force wind in England but, this was definitely the most disconcerting storm as all night we feared a tree smashing into our house.
Portland's legendary winter of 2016-2017 is now in the record books and far behind us but, looking back on it now seems like it was yesterday. Rain, ice, snow, landslides and downed trees was pretty much a weekly occurrence from Dec-March/April. Oh, and the kids will remember all the "no school/snow" days. Although, we made up for it at the end as from April 1 we had to extend the day and add 5 days of school to make up for the 9 weather related days off we had.
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