People Are Sharing Their Most Terrifying Natural Disaster Stories

During hurricane Ike, i remember that shit like it was yesterday. To set the setting, we lived on these apartments in Houston and we were in the hallway of the first floor apartments.

It was raining really hard, imagine the water droplets as tiny spartan men with spears trying to break into the sides of the bricks from outside the rooms.

Darkness, if you were to go outside, i doubt you'd be able to see your legs, my dad told us sternfully to not go outside even to get some fruit (which was like 2ft away).

And the most important part, there was literally this giant tree outside the apartment in front of our right door neighbours. Im talking a ginourmous sycamore tree, my neighbours and upstairs neighbours always complained to take the tree down but to no avail.

The hallways were extra safe, i remember the architect told my dad that they were designed to be in the middle of the whole apartment house because of the amount of mini hurricanes that would happen. Well onto the story, me and the family were just chilling on the hallway and just reading spookie stories.

Nothing out of the ordinary, our roommate mopped the water so as not to reach the carpets, and my dad helped, my mom took care of me and my brothers. Into the third hour of the disaster the whole living room went bright for a few minutes, my dad take a look outside the door, and i remember his eyes opening wide, so wide i thought he saw a dead pile of bodies outside the apartment.

That's when he said in such a calming voice, "Guys, come look at this." When we went outside, holy fuck, we were in the eye of the shitstorm. Remember the movie The Day After Tomorrow (i think), when they saw the walls of the hurricane rotating with crap, that's how it was for Ike, just less dramatic and way whiter. I thought i died and no one told me, it was just so beautiful and calming.

Then the walls started getting closer, and closer, and my dad told us to get in and of course, being the children we were, we were disappointed. Not even five minutes later everything got darker, again, in Satan's anus. That's when we heard this defeaning, ear molesting sound.

It penetrated through the house and we heard yells, but they stopped soon. We figured it was justs the pipes, since they make that AHHHHHH sound when you open them. Well the rest of the night it was smooth sailing.

The next day in the afternoon we walked outaide, and there it was, the big sycamore tree just laying on the ground where my neighbours lived. So much rubble and destruction.

Gas was leaking outside, the lights flickered and i remember this paint all over the tree, "Dad why'd they paint the tree?" I asked so stupidly. My mom got us bavk inside and my dad and rommate went to go help them out.

You know, now to think of it, i don't think that was paint. I remember the neighbours moved and they repaired the place but my dad was never the same. I called him, apparently the daughter and mother had been squashed to death by the tree.

He was hugging her and boom, dead. And that shriek we heard at night? That was the mom's agonizing scream after the tree squashed the shit out of her husband and daughter.

Never learned about what happened to the brother.After that we moved from those apartments and i never knew the rest (until now thanks to OP, the community ended up helping the mom and brother left). And that's my "Oh shit, this is real," moment. I don't have any proof of it, but i assure you that was my most eye opening natural disaster.

Username: Cutting_The_Cats

I saw a few in California and two while traveling. In 1998, there was a decently large earthquake in northern California on Thanksgiving. My family was at the theater watching A Bug's Life (to get the kids out of everyone's hair in the kitchen) and it happened just as there was a big stampede (grasshoppers, if I'm remembering the movie right).My uncle joked that they had the sound so high that you could almost feel the stampede. We realized what had actually happened when we felt the first aftershock in the parking lot, and very noticeable aftershocks continued all that night through Thanksgiving dinner.You get used to experiencing earthquakes in California (when I did my undergrad at a UC, it was always funny to watch everyone freak out over like a 2.0), but the gigantic fires that engulf the entire state every year are usually confined to the news and maybe a slightly smokey day now and again. You don't really experience them first-hand. One year while I was in high school though, I had a definite "oh shit, this is real" moment during a particularly bad fire year when a particularly monstrous fire was ripping through a nearby town and, going outside, noon looked like it was practically night, ash raining down like snow everywhere. Driving through the area of the fire later - and we had family friends who lived there (who were thankfully okay) - was also stunning. The heavily wooded hills and valleys were just completely barren. Everything seemed impossibly smaller and unnaturally empty. Totally surreal.While flying a few years ago, the sky suddenly started getting dark very quickly, and then we started seeing lightning. The pilot came over the speakers telling us that a thunderstorm had blown in an unexpected direction and we'd have to fly through it. I've flown a lot, I am not at all nervous about turbulence, but I thought the pilot sounded legitimately *nervous*.I've been on planes with heavy turbulence, heavy enough that people scream and the contents of cups end up hanging comically in the air for a split second. I had never felt turbulence even remotely like this. Once it hit full intensity, people *stopped* screaming. We could see lightning flashing through the windows and the plane felt like it was being blown absolutely all over the place in different directions second by second. The thing that really freaked me out though, the real "oh shit" moment, was looking at the flight attendants.

I had thought the pilot sounded nervous, but I told myself that I was just imaging it. But the *flight attendants* looked scared, which I had never seen before and have never seen since.The last one was as a kid on a road trip across the country. We were somewhere in the midwest and we were barely outpacing a storm as we continued eastward. 

For a good couple of hours you could see the storm behind us pretty sharply contrasted with the clear sky overhead, and my parents had the radio on keeping track of the storm (the radio was talking about storm preparation, how this would be a big one, flood warnings, etc.). After a couple of hours, it overtook us. It was like we were driving through a pool - solid sheets of rain - and constant thunder and lightning. My mom was telling my sister and I not to touch anything metal in the car as they tried to find a hotel. 

We ended up staying in some surprisingly tall hotel (maybe 8 or 9 floors off the ground?) and I was too young to really be bothered by the car ride, so everything seemed pretty okay. But that night, no one could sleep. To this day it was the loudest thunder I can remember ever having heard. We were in one of those rooms where one wall is basically just a big window and my parents kept the curtains drawn for a while trying to help us sleep. After it became clear we weren't going to, we opened the curtains and just watched. 

Through this huge window several stories off the ground, flat plains in every direction, we were awestruck. It looked biblical - row after row of deep, dark clouds marching across the whole of the sky, blowing directly towards us with a seam running right down the middle, that faint green you sometimes see in thunderstorms, huge arcs of lightning cracking between clouds and slamming downward, and ceaseless bowel-shaking peals of thunder. 

In hindsight, our safety was never really in doubt and the worst that happened was some minor flooding, but to this day I have never seen nature more apocalyptic and rarely been more scared.Username: M0dusPwnens

October 17th, 1989. Bay Area, California. After school I went home like any other day. I wanted to go play before dinner so I took my bike just kitty-corner to the court off our little suburban street.

I'm out at the end of the court with a couple other neighbourhood kids. We're riding our bikes around and trying to jump off the curb rises at the corners of the driveways (We thought we were so cool). Throwing a couple balls around too and shooting hoops at the lone basketball hoop.

I knew I didn't have more than a couple hours because the World Series game was going to be on. We're playing, not a care in the world, and then all of a sudden at around 5 pm it starts to hit. This earthquake was so different than all the others I remembered growing up.

Almost every earthquake I could remember was short and jolting. Like a hard tight shaking. But this quake, it felt like the solid roadway asphalt had somehow turned to liquid and it felt like I was standing on slow rolling waves of water.

That's the exact moment I thought "oh shit." It wasn't like other quakes. It was weird and different. The ground felt like liquid waves of water, not solid hard ground.

I could feel one foot higher than the other, and then that wave rolling under one foot and transferring that height to the other foot which had felt six inches lower a second prior.

The point where I knew we were totally fucked and things were really bad was when I looked up behind the houses at the end of the court. I look up behind those houses and there were these gigantic pine and redwood trees that speckled the little foothill behind the homes.

And these gigantic huge 3 foot to 8 foot diameter trunked behemoths are swaying so far back and forth... are rocking so far... that the god damned trees are crossing each other at the top two-thirds of their heights.

These gigantic things that are so rigid and strong and buried deep into the earth are rocking and rolling so far back and forth that their normally straight trunks are fucking crossing each other in the air above me!!! It was the most shocking, scary, brain freezing, agape, incomprehensible action my eyes had seen.

I got tossed off my bike pretty quickly (I was standing up with the bike standing between my legs). And as soon as the shaking finally stopped and the low rumble of earth moving and bending and the swishing and rustling of all the flora around us started to quiet, mothers' screams started to break the silence as we sat stunned.

Like car alarms being set off progressively getting louder and louder. Each of the neighbourhood parents that were home started screaming at the top of their lungs for their kids to run home immediately.

I didn't even try to get back on my bike, I ran rolling it next to me as fast as I could possibly sprint. The rest of the night was spent trying to figure out communication (telephone lines were all down), electricity (power lines all down), food, water, and aftershock after aftershock tearing us away from whatever comfort we had gained throughout the night and into the next morning.

The 7.0 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Didn't realize how lucky we all were until we finally got power back and started seeing all the news reports of the destruction and damage around the Bay Area.

Username: RandomAccessMamories

Sorry for the length, got a bit carried away with the typing. My house went underwater in the Queensland floods in 2011. I love on a street almost a mile away from the river, several meters above the water level.

We were warned about flooding in the area, potential flash floods, etc. Fairly usual for a Queensland summer. This time however there had been a lot of rain and flash flooding further north which eventually filtered down to the river.

My younger brother was getting nervous and thought we should evacuate. We spent hours trying to dissuade him. The water had never gotten to less than 1-2 meters away from our street level (we live across from a catchment so we can easily see the water levels during heavy rain).

After a few more hours, the water levels were getting much higher than we'd seen before and thought it best if we move our cars to higher ground "just in case it got to street level". Later, we moved a lot of furniture and electronics upstairs. "Just in case it got a few inches in the bottom floor".

Eventually we decided to leave. The water was getting close to the street level which only meant another foot from reaching our bottom floor.

We left to spend the night with family who live in a neighbourhood close by. We had heard that the water had risen further, but had no idea how far as it was dark and we couldn't see anything from our cousin's house.

The next morning there was no power. We thought the flood must have effected the power elsewhere and blacked out a large area. We left their house to go check on ours, only to see neighbours grabbing bags of clothes and other items and heading down the road.

That was my first "oh shit..." moment. Our cousin's house was at the end of a long road, fairly elevated, but with a dip in the middle of the road leading to the rise.

This dip at it's lowest was about 1-2 meters underwater and some good Samaritans were helping evacuate people from what had essentially become a small suburban island via dingy.

We got across this new river and met up with some friends who lived near us (just up the hill from our house) who picked us up in their 4x4. We had to take back-streets as several of the lower main roads were underwater, but we managed to get home.

My biggest "Oh shit..." moment was when we finally got to see our house. There is a highschool behind our house, which is at the base of this large hill, with an elevated sports oval right behind our house.

The water at it's height was about 2 inches from being level with the oval. We walked across it to survey our house. Seeing water lapping at the bedroom windows on the second floor of our house was the most surreal experience I have ever had.

This may not seem like a huge amount to some people. Floods happen and water rises sometimes, however this particular flood was recorded at reaching 19.4 metres (64 ft) at it's peak.

Basically, if I look out my windows right now, I can't even see a body of water in any direction. To have it come up *that high* overnight just blew my mind.

Edit: I put together some [before/after](http://imgur.com/a/ut1CG) photos, though an aerial view doesn't quite do it justice.

Username: _Junkstapose_

It was a wildfire. There's a piece of property that my friends and I have been trying to turn into a nature sanctuary and worship area for five years at that point.

Two outhouses, a pumphouse, a good sturdy well and four cabins. Beautiful rolling seas of moss between spruce bows. Made me sneeze a lot because I'm getting alergic to Christmas trees.

We had one volunteer with us that day and I had just gotten the second wood chipper up and running for the very first time. All of a sudden there were black spruce needles raining down. A few of them burnt the head of my journeyman. Next thing we knew there was a giant pillar of smoke some three properties down.

And then we realized it was headed our way fast. I instantly had us pulling hoses and spraying down everything we could reach.

It had been unseasonably hot for weeks and some idiot had been playing with fire works. The wind was blowing hard straight for us.

And then it was behind us, licking up some trees right by the well. No one listens if you yell "fire" when you have a big one coming right at you. To start getting water on it I disconnected the hoses in the middle and started dousing the jump.

People paid attention when the water pressure where they were suddenly stopped and then I got help putting out the ten feet that were on fucking fire. I watched one of my journeymen throw around six gallon containers of water like they weighed five pounds. Fucking impressive let me tell you.

We got the jump out, but by that time the smoke was much closer. The other journeyman was on the phone with the fire department through all that. I started yelling for the neighbors dog and ran back with the volunteer. I managed to get all the electronics and my period supplies.

Did you know your period will put itself on pause for a natural disaster? I do now.

The big giant malamute who loves me to pieces responded to my calls for him to come for the very first time in his damn life. We threw the shit and him in my car. I had to dress down our volunteer for stopping running because I stopped running because I did not give him fucking permission to stop whIle I grabbed all the phones.

The neighbor who's dog I had wasn't answering her phone. I told my people I had to go get her and drove a ways deeper into the neighborhood through a sea of smoke (roll up those windows and recirculate your air kiddies) and had my volunteer just grab her dog and throw her in my car, grabbed her cat while I told my wonderful neighbor to move her butt.

I ended up telling her she could get moving or she's going over my shoulder so MOVE. It worked remarkably well.

By that point we had to drive back through smoke I couldn't see three feet through. Get part way through and realize there's 70 foot tall wall of fire to one side of me and gun it stright down the middle of the road doing 40 and praying no one is in the middle on the other side. I have never seen two people so fucking happy to see me as my men. They were about to come rescue me.

There's more, but I think that's all of the rant you want. That whole section was me realizing how fucked I really was. Saved a kiddo from heat stroke, had multiple people sob on my shoulder and was in my official shirt so everyone thought I was disaster releif. Having 150 pounds of fluff on a leash whom just wants to be loved brought a lot of comfort to people that day.

Username: Shaeos

For starters, I live in the Philippines. During Typhoon Haiyan while living in the Philippines, near the center of the storm. I watched a roof being ripped off from a house and then an electrical pole crashing into another and towards my neighbor's house.

The rain was falling horizontally. It was like an entire tornado, surrounding the city, and just staying put for hours. While raining.

I couldn't see a lot outside, as I was distracted just mopping and mopping and mopping our floor. Our whole house was flooded, and we were trying to fix it with nothing more than a mop and bucket.

We couldn't use the bathroom. We couldn't close the windows either- the wind was so strong we just knew that if we closed the windows, that the glass would break and spray inwards.

The bathroom window was open and I when I went in, the wind was so strong I got pinned to the door (the wind was blowing northward and our bathroom faces the south) and couldn't move with various toiletries being thrown in my direction. Thankfully I got out unhurt, I had to warn my family not to use that particular bathroom.

We had no water, no electricity, and no phone service for over two weeks. Pretty much all the electric posts in our city were just completely destroyed. Entire houses were just gone. I lived in a rural area at the time, and most of our city was just sugar cane fields. All of which were just destroyed.

Several of my neighbors took their trucks and pickups and just went around gathering the dead and injured. And my God, there were so many of them. You would just drive down the road and see sobbing children with nowhere to sleep, since their entire houses were destroyed and their families along with them.

But what hit me the most was when two weeks later, when our cell service came back (only this, electricity and water were still gone and hospitals were prioritized so we were able to charge and fill up our water supply there) my Aunt called my dad, sobbing and panicking from Manila, because she was so sure that we were all dead when none of us responded to her calls and emails.

My dad is a doctor, so when the electricity and internet returned to the hospital he immediately made me bring my laptop there. Everyone was desperate for news, so when I connected to the internet I just remember pretty much all the off duty nurses and doctors surrounding me, craning their necks to look as I opened up CNN.

We looked at the slideshows of that completely leveled city in Leyte, and it was horrible seeing these grown men and women just start to cry. Some of them mentioned that they didn't even know if their relatives were alive.

The water came back after three weeks. Electricity- a limited amount of it (blackouts extravaganza)- came back after a month. It took over a month for the internet to come back. Nearly two months before cars were allowed to leave the city again.

To this day, the Philippines still hasn't fully recovered from that storm. I don't think I have, either. Do you know what it's like opening the news and seeing that entire cities in your country were leveled? Your friends from other cities crying because they thought you were dead?

I actually consider myself lucky. My city was hardly even in the middle of the spectrum of the damage caused by Typhoon Haiyan.

Username: [deleted]

When I was a kid I lived in Lawton, Oklahoma. Every Saturday night they had auto races on a dirt track and my whole family went every week. I'm talking cousins, aunts uncles, ect.. This particular night it was really sticky outside and there was a lot of static electricity in the air.

It seemed like any other night that had the chance to rain but then it started to thunder. This wasn't a normal thunder, it was a very low, gutteral rolling thunder that you sort of find comfort in after living there so long. It was becoming more and more frequent, but no one cared as most were used to the potential severity of storms.

First came the rain. It was warm at first, and very large, about 15 drops in a 10 foot radius every minute or so. Then, almost as if we had switched climates the air suddenly became chilly. My jaw was rattling from shivering because I was all of 45 lbs in shorts and a tank top.

Then all hell broke loose. If you're from the southwest you know most people don't freak out about storms unless they hear the sirens. I remember being at the concession stand with my uncles when the slow whir of the siren started blaring.

Right as it was getting loud an intensely bright flash immediately followed by a monstrous boom sent the 1000 or so people attending into a synchronized scream, and then panicked scurrying.

By the time my uncle and I had gotten to his truck the tornado was already on the ground and making it's way towards the city/suburbs. In Lawton the high school at the time (McArthur I think) was to be used as an emergency shelter for anyone and everyone that could get there.

As my uncle and I were arriving to the school (we were seperated from the rest of the family) we noticed flooding on the roads making it impossible to drive further, so we had to trek the 1/4 mile the rest of the way to the school.

The problem was, so were a few thousand other people. In the mayhem I was seperated from my uncle and was scooped up by a stranger, who started sprinting towards the school. I was still clutching the glowstick I had gotten at the races.

My entire body was stiff from a combination of absolute terror and the quarter size hail collecting between me and the good samaritan carrying me.

Once we finally reached the school I turned around to see if I could spot my uncle before the darkness of the school swallowed us, (There was no electricity) and saw the biggest, blackest funnel cloud I still to this day have ever seen.

(Which I later found out became an F-4 tornado) I started crying as he set me down to go back out to help more people. I guess it was a combination of fear and exhaustion but once I was in a hallway with other people I passed out.

When I came to I couldn't see anything and I couldn't move (because a woman had grabbed me and pinned me underneath herself) but I could still hear. The only way I can describe this sound is pure pandemonium.

It sounded like a train had grown arms and was ripping steel beams and entire trees apart. There were people screaming, and there was water on the floor, I remember splashing, and being soaked.

I guess the oh shit moment was coming to terms with the fact I was going to die, even though I had no idea what dying meant. I just knew it was a bad thing that happened to people and at that point in my life it was the worst thing imaginable.

After it was over my parents found me, and my other siblings and luckily no one in my family was hurt or killed. On the way home I remember seeing stores and houses torn apart, some had the rooftop ripped off, others were nearly perfect looking.

The one thing I remember the most and we still talk about it today was when we arrived ny mother kind of leaned forward and craned her neck looking up and said "Is there a fucking TREE in my living room?"

And sure as shit there was. A 25 foot tree had been uprooted and replanted through our roof and into our house. It was by far the most vulnerable I've ever felt. I get the same feeling if I think about how small I am in comparison to the universe if that helps paint the picture. Mother nature is a scary bitch.

Username: HavocSynapse

April 27 2011 was fucking scary as hell. I've lived in the Southern tornado alley all of my life and I've seen some shit, but that day will always be a vivid memory for me and my family. It was called a super outbreak and for a good reason.

There were over 100 tornadoes across the state that day and 10 in my immediate area. I was at work when they started to spin up but my wife and 18mo old son were at home which was about 20mi away.

The part of the county I live in is notorious for long track super cells as it's the flattest and warmest part of the area. Sure enough, before I could haul ass out of work and get to my family, 1 tornado was confirmed and 3 more radar indicated were in the area.

All I could do was watch the news and hope for the best. My wife isn't much of a weather watcher, so I was really concerned that she was oblivious to the severity of the situation. One of the radar indicated tornadoes was tracking directly to my neighborhood.

I called and called to warn her, but the cell towers were either down or so congested my call wouldn't go through. I panicked and ran to my car to race home to her. That's probably one of the worst ideas I've ever had, but adrenaline and fear overtook any rational thought that might have existed.

The entire way home I saw emergency vehicles and storm damage everywhere. Road signs were strewn across the highway, someone's roof was laying on top of a nearby business, and more trees blocking roads than I thought possible.

We're talking 100yr old oak and hickory trees, not just the pulpwood pines. It took me over an hour longer than usual to get to my house just from avoiding blocked roads and debris. All the while panicking about the safety of my family.

I finally reach my neighborhood and I only see minor damage to my neighbor's roof. However, there was some moderate damage to the adjacent neighborhood to us. We had dodged a bullet.

As the day went on, 4 more tornadoes came through our area (one being an EF-4) and everyone lost power. We didn't get hit, but we got the flood. The creek behind us is usually only about 2' deep in the deepest section on a normal day.

It crested the next day at over 15' and was traveling somewhere in the neighborhood of 20kts carrying so much debris that it looked more like a sea-level mudslide than water. It took out my fence and all the landscaping around it. BUT we were alive and still had a roof over our head.

Everyone was without power for 5-10 days and we learned very quickly how to survive cooking everything on a propane grill or a banjo burner. I cooked everything we had in the freezer because the only ice we had was what was in the icemaker which wouldn't last more than a day or two and my wife had just gone to the store the previous day.

Thankfully, we were good on formula, baby food, and diapers because none of the stores or gas stations were open while the power was out.

My neighbor had a generator and I had about 10gal of gas for my lawn equipment, so we pulled our resources together in order to have some kind of entertainment and information via radio or tv. I'm a brewer, so I had 2 kegs of beer to share before it went south on me.

His refrigerator/freezer was on the generator, so I rigged a makeshift keezer to keep the beer cool. Once we got the kid to sleep my wife and I would tag team going to their house to visit and have a pint.

In the end, we were ok and we got to know our neighbors really well but 72 people in the county lost their lives and countless more lost their houses and belongings. MANY lessons were learned from that both on personal and professional levels.

Because of it we have a better storm warning system, personnel accountability processes and software, and most everyone now keeps better emergency/survival supplies in their houses and vehicles.

Username: nothesharpest

Back in 2008 there was a major fire in Orange County, CA, where I grew up. Google the "Freeway Complex Fire".

I was in highschool at the time and living in a small suburb called Yorba Linda. Basically a moderately affluent bedroom town for the rest of Orange County. Most of the houses in the town are situated in the hills around Chino Hills State Park, which is mostly undeveloped brush land.

It was a Saturday, so I wasn't at school, and the local news channel was covering the fire. It's pretty common for fires in that area, so we were watching the news, but not terribly concerned yet. Sure the fire was a little close for comfort, but you could actually watch it from the bay window on the second floor of our house.

A couple hours into the ordeal, it was pretty clear the fire was headed in our general vicinity, but still miles away. We started thinking about packing emergency supplies just in case, my family and I threw some clothes in duffel bags, and put the family photo albums in the car.

From there, everything happened very fast. If the wind is right, wildfires can cover huge distances in incredibly short times. Which is exactly what happened.

One minute I'm packing clothes, the next I look out the window and our neighbor's house is fully engulfed in flames. I'm talking like bonfire level on fire. There was no warning, no evacuation called. Just minor concern one minute, fire everywhere the next.

We run to the cars in the driveway and you can feel the heat. It's like the hottest, dryest desert heat you can imagine. On a November morning.

We peel out of the driveway, along with every other car in the track housing development - some couple thousand houses - and it's gridlock on the one lane road leaving the development. Meanwhile the hills on either side of the road are on fire, and you can't see more than 10 feet because of the smoke. Embers and ash are landing on the car.

So I'm in the car, and one of my parents is driving when the surrealism hits me. Everything around me is on fire and I'm trapped in a car in complete standstill traffic. And if we get out of this, I'm probably not going to see my house again.

Everything from there is pretty much falling action. We make it to a bordering town that is not on fire and check into a hotel. The authorities fought the fires for a couple days, so we couldn't come back to our house. Didn't even know if it was standing.

Eventually we are allowed back into our cul-de-sac, and somehow our house is fine. So is every other house except the one neighbor's house. That's completely in ruins. The whole street came together to help them sift through the ashes, and we did manage to find some of their family keepsakes and photos.

The fields and brush land behind the houses was completely burned. Looked like photos from WWI no man's land. Driving around the neighborhood you'd see some streets where every single house was burned to the ground. Others where one house was reduced to ash but all the others were fine. Burned out cars still left in driveways.

Ultimately, no one was killed. There were a few injuries among the fire fighters. Some 300+ homes were destroyed.

We heard after the fact that because of the way homes were situated on hills, fire hydrants at the tops of the hills didn't have enough pressure to fight the fires. So the damage was disproportionately high there.

Username: LeChatelier

I was in the May 3, 1999 F5 tornado outside Tinker AFB. I was a small child (about to turn 5) and didn't realize how fucking bad it was until about 10 years later and reminiscing with my mom.

In my child's mind, there's was a storm. The near constant memo at the top of the TV screen was a much more threatening red that day. The sirens were going. It was really annoying.

I had to turn up the TV. My dad was running around a lot. He tried to drag the mattress off his bed into the bathroom and my mom said "Fucking forget it Todd! We're going to the bank!"

So my mom wrapped my sister and I in our rain coats and put cooking pots on our heads. She said it was a funny game. It was more so the giant hail didn't smack us in the head. It was so dark too. I remember I felt like a big kid, being out so late, even though it was the middle of the day.

We went to the bank my mom worked at and hid in the basement and underground ATM tunnels. A lot of people were there. I guess it was an unofficial shelter. People in buses kept coming to the door. My mom says now that they all had animals and the shelters wouldn't let them in.

So she said fuck it, come in, we'll get the carpets steam cleaned. At some point the power kept going in and out. I remember getting really mad at my dad and telling him to stop flipping the switch. He was really confused.

Eventually the tornado went right by us. The scream of the air gave me nightmares for years. It's like the loudest freight train. The animals started going crazy. The power went out and didn't come back.

So many people were crying and praying. My sister and I were super confused. But my mom stayed really calm. I think that's why I never realized how bad it was.

But when it was safe we went home to make sure our apartment complex was still there. We drove passed it twice because where there were two big buildings, there was only one. Our building was fine. It didn't even lose a shingle. But across the street, there was no sign of the other building except the outline of the foundation.

My parents changed clothes, put us back in the car, and started driving. They stopped a lot and my mom told my sister and I to stay in the car and not look out the windows.

It felt like an eternity every time they left. My mom would come and check on us, covered in orange Oklahoma mud and tears and blood. I remember snapping at her that I was hungry and wanted to go home. She just said we would soon.

She was digging people out of their houses and I was a fucking dick. When we talked about it years later and it clicked in my head, I felt like the biggest asshole. She'd found so many trapped and injured people in the wreckage.

My dad had to lift a whole barn wall off a trapped horse. They were tired and bloodied and drained. She wouldn't speak of the people that couldn't be saved.

We didn't watch the news so I didn't know the true scope of the disaster until I was much older. So, I guess my "this is it" moment didn't happen until years after.

Username: withlovesparrow

I have a few ones, the first one is what started my obsession with weather.

Early 90's, most likely '93, we (mom, 3 siblings, dad was deployed) were living in Deputy, Indiana. A literal one street town from what I remember.

Mom was in town having lunch with one of her sisters, and a cousin was watching us kids. Sirens go off, I was about 3 and never heard them before, so I was curious.

We had to go outside to get to the cellar, and I saw the tornado in the distance, not sure how strong it was though.

I wanted to stay outside and watch it, but my cousin yelled at me to get in the cellar. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that I was a stupid kid for wishing I could be closer to the tornado.

Nacogdoches, Tx, 7th grade math class. At the time, Texas had something called DEAR (Drop Everything And Read), and it happened to be DEAR time, so class was quiet. We all felt our ears popped and looked at each other.

A couple of kids sitting next to the window pointed out the funnel cloud that was swirling very close to campus and begged to sit somewhere else, but teach said no. The sirens started to go off, but she still said no.

It wasn't until the principle told came over the intercom and told us to seek shelter that she finally did something. She had us sit in the stairwell for 15 minutes until the all clear was given.

Hurricane Rita. We didn't get it as bad as others thankfully, but I did pass out from the heat for a few minutes. Good thing my mom filled the tubs with water before the storm hit, and I was able to cool off. Being an asthmatic during intense heat isn't fun.

Didn't have school for about 2 weeks, and one of our trees barely missed hitting our neighbor's house. Thankfully my parents were prepared.

Although we couldn't afford a generator, both cars had full tanks, we had a camp stove, and a portable DVD player my mom plugged into her car.

During the eye of the storm, my family and I went outside to see the damage and roast marshmallows. When the other side of the storm hit, we went back and forth between hanging out in the garage, or going inside to nap.

Central Tx, Memorial day 2 years ago. Sirens went off, weather channel app told us to shelter in place. Told my son to put on his shoes and bike helmet (our house isn't sturdy), cleared out a closet and told him to hang out in there for a bit.

Hubs went outside and tried looking for the tornado, I was going back and forth between gathering pillows and blankets, and using the bathroom(was pregnant and well hydrated/and feeling sick). After looking at the radar and seeing that it had shifted a bit north of us, we decided to hang out in the living room.

At one point, my pregnant ass decided to go hang out with neighbors in the street to watch the storm. We could hear it (hubs was intrigued as he had never experienced one), but it wound up hitting a couple towns 20 minutes northwest of us.

Each time, I have been lucky enough to be near bad stuff, but never fully be immersed in it. I was on post for the 2nd Fort Hood shooting though.

Not fun when the 'Big Voice' tells you that there's an active shooter and you suddenly can't in touch with your spouse, or trying to keep your toddler from going to the windows.

Username: Nerdy_Momma4827

A month before Hurricane Sandy, I bought a new car. My area had a mandatory evacuation, but by that point the wind had already picked up and I was scared to drive.

My husband (boyfriend at the time) and his brother came to pick me up, and I stayed at their house outside the evacuation zone.

From there, Sandy looked very unintimidating. A tree crashed into his neighbors roof, but that was the worst of it. But then my neighbor, who had decided to stay, called me to let me know that my new car was underwater.

By midnight there was just wind where I was, and my husband was outside with his neighbor assessing their roof damage. I figured my neighbor was exaggerating, it wasn't so bad, and we got similar hype the year before with Hurricane Irene that was fairly mild in comparison.

The next morning, we decided to check out his boat that was docked a few miles from us. Leaving his street, we saw it was much worse than we thought. However, as there was no water damage, it still didn't seem *too* terrible. Also at this point there was no electricity, so we had yet to see the news.

When we got to where his boat was docked, a business area, I started to realize it was much worse than I thought. Boats were in the middle of the large main road, a local business burned down to the ground, huge pieces of boardwalk were gaping out of the sides of people's homes. One of my coworkers house was destroyed.

I was lucky in that my own home only had superficial water damage to the exterior and our fences blew over, and my car drained out and worked fine after some work.

My job was closed down for a few days due to electrical issues, so I decided to volunteer. The town I volunteered in was obliterated. A woman, an Italian immigrant who had purchased a home only a couple of years prior approached me and I asked her what she needed.

"There's water bottles over here, and boxes of garbage bags to the left."

She just looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, in broken English, "Garbage bags? I need *everything.* Everything I ever owned is gone."

I don't know why, out of all the people I met in her same situation, she hit me the most. She was old, and all I could think of was all the family memories she brought over from across the Atlantic were gone. All of her history.

The good news is that Sandy response by the government was exceptional, and everyone I personally know who had their homes destroyed got great insurance payouts.

The boardwalk was rebuilt, and is better than before (I know that seems inconsequential next to people losing their livelihoods, but it was a place I grew up going to every single summer and it was eerie to see it in such a state).

What hit me the most is that while I was playing board games and drinking wine, under the assumption that everything was fine, some people in my community were losing everything.

Username: Wand_Cloak_Stone

I was cooking in my kitchen, maybe 12-13 years ago, when an earthquake hit. My cupboard doors started swinging open, the dishes started sliding out from within them. The stove where I was cooking some scrambled eggs started spraying fire in plumes that engulfed the pan in dragon breath style spurts.

I lived on the second story of an apartment complex and everything was swaying, rolling almost. I knew that I was supposed to get out or get under a door frame or something, but in the moment, I was stuck in a sort of dance, slamming each cupboard door shut and shoving it's contents back into it before they could spill out.

I flicked the stove off and jumped back and forth, closing one door, and then the next. There was kind of a rhythm to it. I remember smiling at that point, the danger hadn't set in at all and I was just dealing with one problem at a time instead of seeing the big picture.

I kept up with it pretty well, but then I noticed that in the living room, my entertainment center, which held my TV, stereo and video game systems, was rocking in a way that looked like it was about to overextend and tilt forwards, crashing everything onto the ground fr a height that I wasn't sure they would survive.

As any respectable bachelor would, I said "fuck that" to my dishes and ran to the entertainment center, spreading my arms and legs, using my whole body to hold the electronics in their respective sections, pushing the whole thing with mostly my chest and face.

Game cases slipped by and splashed onto the floor around me, but I managed to use each limb to bar the important, breakable stuff from falling. At one point, a strong "wave" had me pushed so far back, bent nearly in half, that my knees were shaking, threatening to buckle, to keep the thing from flattening me.

With my head turned to the side, cheek pressed against the heft of my old tube TV screen, I saw plates and glasses crashing down from the kitchen cabinets. The floor was a mess of broken plates and shards of glass.

Knives had fallen into the plate graveyard from the magnetic strip that previously held them. My George Foreman Grill came barreling out of a high cabinet from above the stove. I watched it make impact with a fallen knife, bouncing the blade into the air, doing several corkscrews before it fell back into the shards of sharp broken things.

I managed to get the entertainment center upright, relieving pressure from against my face and arms and chest, just as the rolling subsided and the shaking ceased. Looking around at the shambles the quake left the rest of my apartment in, everything thrashed and fucked up, in some ways irreparably, I realized how many places I could have been standing at just the exact wrong moment, where I would have been killed or badly injured.

I realized that, even though I'm still proud to have rescued my PS2, my GameCube, and the first TV I ever bought myself after moving out on my own (I still use it in the garage), it wasn't the smart choice.

Epilogue:
In fact, I had been working at Home Depot and took the day off because I had worked insanely long hours the rest of the week. A few minutes after the calamity subsided, my best friend, who also worked at The Depot, showed up to make sure I was okay.

He told me stories of how giant riding lawnmowers were shaken loose from the 16ft racks and came crashing onto the concrete pavement, busting the floors open and sending everyone running. Another work-friend of mine, the guy who was doing the job I would've been doing if I hadn't decided to take the day off, was using a forklift to place a box of crowbars into a rack when the shaking nearly toppled the lift and decimated the pallet that the crowbars were on.

Motherfucking *crowbars* rained down on him, many of them came right through the couple of iron bars that made the cage like roof of the forklift. One of them smacked him just beneath the eye and gave him the most insane black eye I've ever seen to this day- the closest thing to it are the fake, prosthetic facial injuries from boxing, like in a movie.

His eye was all swollen shut and it looked like he was having an allergic reaction to a bee sting. This was maybe 12 years ago. Nobody was seriously (or fatally, at least) injured that I am aware of.

Username: WalterPolyglot

I was a kid in 92 for the hurricane that flattened Miami's southern neighborhoods, Andrew.
The anxiety build up begins up to 1 week out; Constant news coverage, that's all that people talk about.

3 days out supermarkets were already out of canned goods, bottle water, flashlights, batteries... Long lines to pay whatever you could find, and even longer lines to fill up with gas; Most stations ran out of fuel 2 days before the storm.

The day of the storm we helped my dad vigorously install wooden boards that we were lucky to get at the parking lot of Home Depot for triple the price. It was a gorgeous day, not a cloud on the sky and hotter than ferrets fucking in a wool sock.

Luckily we were two strong and fit kids, and so was my dad. It is not easy with a hammer and nails to board up a big concrete house.

After 12h work we were exhausted and settled for what was coming. Latest reports showed the northern eye wall moving right above us!.

It was my first hurricane and it was a dark night. The wind picked up slowly, but with ever increasing gusts and that's when we realized shit was about to get real.... Way before the eye hit us, power went out.

No TV, and just a radio crackling with reports of power outages affecting millions. The house sounded like we were being attacked by zombies.

The moment I'll never forget when I went to the garage to pick something up; The 2-car garage door was thumping like a massive subwoofer, I felt my chest pound like I was sitting on a sub at a club, only much, much bigger.

It felt that it was about to explode at any second. My family of 4 huddled in the bathroom and threw my little brother's mattress on top of us. Then it happened, the entire roof ripped off like a can of paint. W

He felt a vacuum suck the air out of our lungs, then a horrible noise following by wind... we grabbed on to that mattress like a wild animal clawing to the edge of a cliff for what seemed to be an eternity....
When the winds came down, it was extremely unsafe to walk around.

Everything we owned was gone, the cars were peppered lke they were shot with birdshot dozens of times, and I swear I did not recognize the street we lived in.

I took a bike ride around the block and almost got lost, Miami had become an apocalyptic scene with wood, branches, glass, water and a few naked standing trees.

Took us 3 weeks to get power back, that was my baptism by fire which I will never forget.

Username: [deleted]

I was was in a tornado a week after moving to Oklahoma. We were staying with then-boyfriend's mom about an hour outside of Oklahoma city. Imagine beautiful green fields in every direction, split up by the occasional road or creek.

There had been a tornado about a week before we got there, and there had been thunderstorms all week. Everyday on the weather station they would give chances of a tornado, but because they gave so many warnings on the news every day it never seemed like it was going to happen.

We didn't even know until it was almost there because his dad has a brain injury and turned off the weather radio (because he didn't like the sound of the alarm). I was playing WoW and wasn't looking outside.

The neighbor knocked and asked if they could come in our shelter and that's when we looked out and saw the storm. We told him yes and then he left to get his family, but he didn't return.

It started hailing. Me, my boyfriend, his obese brother, his mom, his dad, his mom's boyfriend, and ONE of the three dogs all went out to go in the shelter. We got in the shelter which looks like this red metal door in the ground in the yard, and inside you go down a ladder into a small cement room.

I was trying not to cry and freak out, and they said that we could be down there for hours so I was really worried about having to go to the bathroom in front of everyone in the shelter. We were in there a while and we just quietly waited. It seemed like forever but I think it was only like 15 minutes.

The mom's boyfriend kept wanting a cigarette and finally he lifted the door open for a smoke (with everyone yelling for him not to).

I remember the clang of the door and him looking out with a serene smile. He wanted everyone to come look but no one would. "You'll only see this once in your life!" he said. So I climbed up the ladder.

The sky was dark black with big black clouds, and these tiny spinning funnels of cloud would drop from the high up cloud, and right before they hit the ground they would disappear. One after another after another.

Then one didn't disappear. It got darker and bigger and its tail moved around like crazy. "Well time to shut this" I could barley hear him say and we went back down. There was a lot of noise even in the shelter with the door shut.

After a while we came out and it was raining with thunder and lightening still, but the tornado had come and gone. What struck me was the randomness of it. The neighbor's house was gone, nothing left of it but the cement foundation.

Our house was untouched. Much of the neighborhood was like that, this was gone that was fine, you could trace the path of destruction like a kid had scribbled on the map with a pen.

I was so surprised by how many people didn't have shelters, and how many people didn't have insurance. In the next months we watched as some people rebuilt, and some people popped a tent or moved away.

The tornados and no shelters and the whole racist thing made us move pretty quick, we only lived there 3 months. Beautiful place though.

\Username: amberlovesmath

Mine was actually fairly recent. I live in Fort Mcmurray, Alberta, and had the pleasure of experiencing one of Canada's biggest natural disasters. My day started out so incredibly normal.

I had the day off and it was a really warm day out and the fire had seemed to be under control, so I went in my backyard and tanned. I was laying down for maybe an hour when I realised I couldn't feel the sun on my anymore.

I looked towards the sun and saw that the sky was on fire and the smoke hid the sun. I was the only one of the 4 people in my house who had the day off. We had fires all the time, there were always rumors of being evacuated. But this day felt different.

I went inside and packed a bag, grabbed my dog food and put her leash on her, just to be on the safe side. That's when my sister called me, saying she had been evacuated from her workplace, and was stuck in traffic going home.

It was voluntary at the time, and the same thing had happened a few days prior, so I still wasn't worried. I called my roommate (T) who had got a ride to work and asked him if I could put my things in his truck, just in case.

Within half an hour I was under a voluntary evacuation. I called my other roommates (Z&J) to see if I could pack anything for them and if I should wait for them at home. The smoke was getting worse. My sister then called again saying she was waiting for gas.

While on the phone I heard the alberta emergency alert system through the phone on the radio (which they tested recently, and cause an intense panic attack) it was time for me to go.

My sister asked if we could meet at her place since I could get there faster to gather stuff for her and her fiance, and it was furthest from the fires. I called my T again, and asked if I could take his truck and told him where to meet me.

He got to my sisters as my other roommates (Z&J) made it home, but they had no gas. I told them to take our longboards and get to my sisters. They have scars from where the embers burned them as they fled for their lives.

We couldn't go pick them up. Hell we couldn't make it to the end of the street with traffic. 4 hours after I left my house, my roommates, sister, brother-in-law, and myself were finally together. But we didn't know where to go. We didn't know what was best.

Do we go north and hope we don't get trapped there (the road eventually ends)? Or do we go south, through the fire, where we don't how bad it is. We hear southbound is closed.

We decide north. It takes us an hour to get to the highway. By that time we hear rumors of southbound being open again.

We change our minds. We go south through the town. Turning towards the fire was the biggest "Oh shit" moment. We had no idea what we were driving through. No idea if what we were going to see.

No idea of the devastation that lay before us. That was the first point the I didn't fully know what was coming. There wasn't a set target or goal or something to do. It was only, I hope we can get out of this alive.

Username: sarebear315

1998 storm system that hit St Peter MN and central MN. https://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-history/2013/03/when-wind-screamed-looking-back-1998-st-peter-tornado

We had 4 kids at the time: two boys 5 and 4, and two girls 2 and not-yet-1.

Driving home that afternoon, we knew the weather was 'pending bad' as the air really does turn green, and the conditions were right (IIRC humid and still). So we were alert and really not allowing ourselves to get 'into' anything like TV or games, routinely checking outside, etc.

We fortunately live in a 100+ year old home, in an area that gets a surprising amount of severe weather. This is a comfort, knowing that while it's no guarantee against a direct-hit, this house has survived 100 MN tornado seasons without losing its roof, etc.

Our "back door", in the style of older homes in the area, leads out to a windowed 4-season 10x12 porch that has the actual exterior door. All those exterior windows were closed, but like any old house, that porch has a fair amount of air infiltration generally (thus the interior door also has a seal).

Around 6-ish we were actually discussing gathering up the tornado-kits and heading for the storm-room in the cellar. My wife had literally just gone upstairs to get the girls, the boys were in the family room, and I was standing near the 4-season porch.

I watched the wind go from 0 to at least 70+ mph in something less than 15 seconds and was increasing. My first 'oh shit' moment was when our door started buzzing.

That wave of wind was cramming so much air into that inside porch, and so much of *that* was being forced into the interior of the house that this solid-oak door was BUZZING like a freaking 100dB smoke alarm.

I heard my wife shout from upstairs (barely) and I was turning to go get the boys when I had the 2nd 'oh shit': adjacent to our house was about a 70' Ash tree that we'd been...concerned... about for years. 4' diameter trunk (later when we had it cut down, the tree guy estimated the 12-14' main trunk to the first crotch was around 12,000 lbs).

I saw a flash of tree trunk outside the window, branches, and a massive CRASH on the roof right over my head. I was certain that big bastard had fallen right where I was standing.

Fortunately, as you might suspect, I *didn't* actually die. It turned out to be 1/3 of the secondary trunks (about 20" in diameter) fell *precisely* between the house and the detached garage - about 20' gap - damaging neither substantially. The CRASH I'd heard over my head was our chimney which fell at the same moment.

Anticlimax, but given that it meant I was still alive, I'll take it.

Later we recognized when we came back up from the basement that the tree (on the south side of the house) fell NE. Other trees north of the house fell NNE. Our chimney went SSE. Either it was a swirling tornado funnel, or some crazy ass straightline winds.

During the cleanup, we found chunks of roof in our yard that came from no home in our (small) town. We only realized years later when on a college-visit that they probably came from St Peter, about 40 miles away. At least, that's the only place we've seen that had that sort of roof slate that we found.

Username: styopa

I have lived in Kansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio. Not exactly tornado alley as you can tell, but that doesn't stop mother nature's wrath on my family.

In Kentucky I lived in Fort Knox (on-post housing). I was about 8 at the time. We had a very large field leading to the road entering the military base behind our house.

It was massive (I'll see if it's still there on Google maps and edit the coords in if I can, as I don't live there anymore). I was playing with my brothers in the field, climbing the tallest tree we could find when it happened the first time.

The sky blackened very quickly and it happened so fast. We hear our mom screaming and panicking from the house, running across the field to get us. We climb down and as we are running in the house we hear the sirens go off.

We could see the tornado in the field behind our house where we were just a few moments ago as we entered the house and ran to the basement. It missed us, but it did tear up a crap ton of stuff with debris. We had to replace all of the siding on our house.

Second time in Kentucky on Fort Knox. I get home form school and my mom runs out to the bus as fast as she can. As soon as the door opens and my foot touched the ground the sirens went off again.

My mom tells the bus driver to get the kids to safety (school was sort of far away from what I remember) and we book it inside to the basement saferoom again. But at least we had a Super Nintendo with Bomberman to keep us occupied.

We blame the weatherman "Jay" for everything about the tornados. He'd always say it was sunny and perfect weather and it would end up being tornados. He wasn't on much. Bad luck for him.

We had sooo many tornados in Kansas. I don't remember them all that well because I was much younger then, but I do remember them happening.

In South Carolina I remember riding back from the PX because my parents took us with them to get groceries. We were on the highway and we heard the sirens go off. I was playing Pokemon Crystal at the time with the little light I had from street lights.

There was debris everywhere as we got closer to our house and the wind was making it very hard to control the car, but my dad is a total boss at driving in extreme conditions so we're good. We get home eventually and we see that our lights are on, the radio is playing, and the door is open.

We immediately assume the worst and think there is someone on our house. We hide in the shed in this awful weather while my parents make sure it's all clear. Turns out my mom left the radio on and the light was turned on by something that fell off the washing machine.

The door was opened because of the crappy lock and the horrible wind. We had no basement here too, so we all just sat in the laundry room with blankets under a sturdy table and lots of pillows. This was at Fort Jackson.

I just realized how long this is getting. I'll post more if you like, but I figure I am pretty late to the party anyways. I have more from the time I have lived in other states and during roadtrip and camping trips! Super fun!

I don't know why but I always love storms. I know I can possibly did, and that they are very dangerous; but I love the feeling you get from that. It's not just the adrenaline, but that sense of paranoia and uncertainty. It's exciting. No I'm not suicidal.

Username: DontLetYourslefDoIt

Partly the first part, partly after.It was both immediate, and continual

At first my body jolted awake, adrenaline following through my veins, the bed was shaking. I rolled right, and planted my feet firm on the hardwood. Rumbling sounds louder than anything I've ever heard. I immediately opened the door, and waited in the doorframe.

My hands were shaking, separate to the shaking of the building. Anxious, and afraid, I waited there, waiting for my travel companions to get the fuck up. They took far too long, and my nerves continued to fray, as my brain wracked the idea of crossing the hall-their door opened.

And then we talked, and they spent what felt like a half hour just searching for passports coats and other 'essentials' whilst lecturing me of the importance of having this stuff with you at all times, instead of leaving the very old building. *I was already in my coat and shoes*, since I actually had them by the door, and my identification in a more or less safe place.

We descend one, two, three, maybe four flights of stairs till our feet hit marble, then cobblestone. The shaking has been stopped since they gathered their stuff.

By the time we get to the middle of the road/square there's thirty or so people there, and more filing in. People from all over; Italians, English, Chinese, and an American; Students, tourists, and citizens(not in that order.)

We start to talk with the townsfolk and not two minutes later my mother calls me from across the world concerned for me. She had heard the news as soon as it happened.

Once we hang up the shaking starts again. It lasts at least half as long as the first tremour, but lighter, seemingly farther away as if it were indeed thunder.

But no. Tremor after tremor hit us, from the first earthquake at around midnight till the last aftershock at seven twenty in the morning if memory serves. People slept in their cars, and people collected in this one bar...I swear to God, this fucking man, absolutely selfless...

Working the graveyard shift when this started, by himself-a European bar mind you, coffee, beer, and pastries, not liquor-he keeps the place going, letting people collect within, for its central location, news of the event playing live, wifi access for all, the most amazing pizza. Kept it all going till the *entirety* of the rest of the staff came in.

This is a very small town inside the mountains of Italy. Five or six more people come in at like five in the morning and keep this shop going for the benefit of the people-most are collected not to purchase, but to be warm, safe, and informed.

Later in the morning, while the shocks settle down another bar opens, and a cafe. This tiny town filled with wanderers, was the most resilient, tight knit, and community driven group of strangers I've ever seen.

Turns out we were woken up by a 7.9(feel free to correct, it was over magnitude 7 regardless) earthquake that broke it's way through Italy.

The first disaster I've been through. I swear to God, if this collection of mountains wasn't where it was, it would have been us absorbing the shock, and not the rock to the West.

*Also me, my uncle, and an Englishman legitimately foresaw this happening.* It was the day Pompeii went that this happened.

Username: AerMarcus

In 2012, many Appalachian states were hit by an extreme series of Thunderstorms, called a [Derecho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2012_North_American_derecho).

For various reasons (mountains, weather patterns, etc.), most Appalachian states don't typically get hit by serious disasters other than flash floods, so this phenomenon was a storm unlike many had ever seen.

At the time, I was living with my mom in West Virginia. We had been watching the weather and knew that it was supposed to storm but neither of us anticipated what would happen.

Ever since I was a little boy, I have been terrified of tornadoes; Storms Stories on The Weather Channel made sure of that. So, when the storms hit and I could see the lightning and hear the thunder and the winds, I really started to get nervous.

My mom, however, was never really bothered by storms since our area really didn't *get* bad storms. I'll never forget the fear that I felt when she told me to get all my essentials (wallet, phone, computer, etc.) and get in the basement.

It was like if my mom was afraid, then there really was something to be afraid of. I didn't sleep at all that night because I was too afraid that I would wake up to my house being gone.

Fortunately, no damage was done to the houses in my neighborhood. Every public utility was out: cable, Internet, power, water -- all of it.

Having no cable or Internet, we had no access to the news to know exactly what had happened. It was the heart of the summer and the temperature was supposed to be in the 90's, so my mom and I decided to drive into the city and just kill some time.

Immediately after we got on the road, we started to realize that the storm really was much more than just a regular storm. The roads were covered in sticks, branches, leaves, and mud from small landslides.

Entire trees were literally ripped out of the ground -- roots and all. Trees that have been around all my life. Power was out for miles and miles and miles. It really was a disaster area.

My last "oh shit" moment came in the late afternoon. We had driven probably 45 or so miles away from home to get into the city and we had driven around the city for the entire afternoon, so we really needed to get gas for the trip home.

What is normally a simple thing, turned into a massive ordeal. Every single gas station that we went to was either out of service or bled dry.

Every one. There was no way that we could get home with the fuel that we had left, so we were legitimately going to be stranded in the city until we could get gas.

Fortunately, one station on the opposite side of the city did, in fact, have some amount of gas left. Cars were lined up for probably a mile to get gas from this one station. We did end up getting refueled and back home safely, but it was something out of a movie.

Utilities ended up being out for vast swaths of the state for a week or more. I had friends who didn't have power or water for a dozen or more days (very rural areas). It was blisteringly hot -- in the 90's every day. It was so miserable.

My mom and I actually ended up leaving the state and staying with relatives until utilities started coming back on.

Username: nalexander50

Ooh I have a story for this! This happened relatively recently during hurricane Matthew. I was driving home from work during the worst of it because I'm an idiot.

I've been through plenty of hurricanes including Sandy during which I was outside floating stranded dogs around on plywood as refrigerators floated by so know things can get pretty bad.

I came up to a section of road that had a little water on it, maybe a few inches deep. This exact story is why they tell you never to cross no matter how shallow the water looks. So I'm driving across and out of nowhere the storm intesified.

My car started blowing to the side and I couldn't control it. Right at this moment a nearby dam broke and with zero warning the water was up to about the center of the door on my car and it started floating and the engine cut out.

I had no control at all and my car was just in this strong rushing water and sinking. I remembered reading that power windows stopped working underwater so the very first thing I did was roll my window down.

Cars are not water tight AT ALL so even though I was still floating it was filling up pretty fast. I grabbed my backpack which had my super expensive laptop in it & my cellphone which took a few minutes so in hidsight was probably pretty dumb.
By now the water is rushing over the hood & my car is way off the road getting swept into the woods and going under. No idea why but I never panicked, I was just completely calm throughout like it was a movie I was watching.

I climbed out the window and swam to higher ground which was difficult because I was wearing a heavy sweatshirt and ankle length wool skirt and the water was freezing but I didn't really notice that at the time.

I abandoned the car and walked all the way home thoroughly drenched in the worst of the storm. (thankfull it was less than a mile.) The whole incident never felt real. It was like being in a movie.

At no point was I afraid, my mind was just saying "do this, okay now do this" and I was blindly doing what it said. I've been In disaster situations before and had the same sensation of complete calm and just doing what needs to be done.

In hindsight realizing that I had to open the window before the water got too high probably saved my life along with my love of the ocean making me a very strong and experienced swimmer.
It could have gone wrong very easily at any moment.

The car was totalled of course and I kid you not I was just about to make my last payment. Everything inside the car was a total loss as well.

I walked back a few days later after the water receeded and found my car smashed up against a tree in the woods. All my belongings were everywhere. My laptop somehow was fine despite the swim.

Like these things sometimes do it worked out for the best in the end as I got a new car and I'm perfectly fine, just a bit leary about driving in the rain and crossing puddles these days.

Username: Cianalas

I was in Nepal in 2015, during the earthquake. I was in the country, with my father, not far from Bhaktapur, we were taking some photographs of the little brick factories.

There was only "fields" around, and some little houses made of bricks, plus the factories, (little brick constructions, with huge chimney).

At one point, a woman asked us to come in her house so we could eat together and we could show her the photographs. We accepted, and it was a really nice moment! We shared a meal with her, her husband, and her father, it was really cool. They asked us if we wanted to visit the fields with them.

We accepted, and I swear to God guys, at the moment I walked out, the fucking earthquake started. I come from France, so I never really experienced one before, except once in Corsica, but it was a tiny one, and I was sleeping.

I screamed, and told my father and the family to get of the house. Hopefully everyone got out before the house collapsed, (it was made of bricks and dirt...) we the went to the field so we could be safe.

As I told you, it was my first experience with a earthquake, so we thought it was very located, just a little landslide.

We then went back to Bhaktapur, so we could call my mom and the rest of my family. On the way back, we saw other houses collapsed, the factories chimney half broken, people and animals injuried or dead... It was the worst moment of my whole life.

We really realised it was real when were inside Bhaktapur : all the monuments were collapsed. All the fucking centuries old monuments of that poor country were down, we were among the last persons who saw them.

Only two hours before, they were still here, and now, they were just a pile of bricks. Imagine being in one of the poorest country in the world, and see that amazing cultural heritage destroyed in only 15 seconds, it was certainly the most heartbreaking thing I ever saw.

I'm telling you guys, I'm in tears by writing this. I will never forget that terrible moment of my life. That was the moment when we realised it was happening...

FYI, we stayed in Bhaktapur for one night, and went back to Katmandu. Even though most of the construction survived, it was not safe sleeping in the houses/hotels/building, so we had to one night in a golf playground, where a terrible rain started.

Some locals asked us to follow them, they made us diner, and made us sleep in a tent they made, with their family. The next day, we got up, we thank them, and left without saying anything.

Guys, if you're reading this, I'm so grateful about what you did for my father and for me, I think about it every day of my life, may you guys have the greatest life, I can't thank you enough.

We then waited two days more inside of an international hotel nearby the airport, and flew back to Paris.

Username: Aukadauma

I was in a big ass tower in Shibuya when the East Japan Earthquake shook everything up. I was sitting at the table feeling like I was motion sick... then heard a whole bunch of screaming and crying.

Walked out the room I was in and saw everyone scrambling to the stairs. I had no fucking idea what was going on. No fire alarm, nothing. So I was like, if I run with the heard I can just get trampled or I can wait a bit and try to gun it down the stairs.

I get out on the street (by Don Quixote) and it was crazy. Everyone heading to the convenience stores trying to buy stuff. And here I was, just not knowing what was going on.

So after 15 mintues of pushing through the crowds, I cross the scramble crossing and get into the station...

For some reason, I thought some famous people were there and that is why it was crowded. Nope... hear announcements that all trains were stopped and no buses were moving.

Tried to call my wife, nope that wasn't working. I go ask someone what happened and they gave me this weird ass look, like how dont you know wtf happened.

So I walk home, which took a few hours due to the mass amount of people. Talk to the missus and explain that I didn't really notice and just feelt queezy.

Turns out, the building I was in was all earthquake proof. So it just sways and what not... hence me feeling weird.

I had two young sons at the time. We couldn't use any water from the faucets because of the radiation, so we couldn't make baby formula and my wife breast feading was a concern as she wasn't getting much water for a few days. We didn't even bath our sons cause we didn't want to fuck up and wash them with radiated water.

So being American gets us some perks. I head down to the Sanno Hotel (A US military hotel, armed guards out front) with my sons, passport in hand to get some radiation medicine and what not. I get in and ask the guy giving me the drugs if he could give me some water so I can make some baby formula.

He said he cant give me water... but he went in the back to get the drugs, had anther bag too and it had 3 liters of water. Told me not to show anyone when I walk home because there were a lot of locals going up to the front gate asking for water as well.

The in laws have a cabin in the mountains that was further away from the radiation, father in law took the kids and the rest of the family there and I told him that I would stay at their place so his restaurant doesn't get looted.

They have a well up there so they could stock up on water and come back. Left me there with a couple bottles of water and some left over food.

I couldn't call my family for a few days and everyone was thinking I died. Now every time there is a quake, people trip and I tell them we get quakes like once a week.

Username: IparryU

Shortly after we got around the downed pine tree (and the highway department truck seemingly just disappeared into the night) we were looking for shelter from the storm. It seemed like hours but was probably only 10 or 15 minutes until we got to the next exit.

Remember, this was in rural western Mississippi in the middle of a hurricane. At night. Probably about midnight or so, I really don't remember.

At any rate, I pull off the interstate and head for the only structure -- a small cinderblock building with a row of gas pumps in front of it. It had a sign on top of a twenty foot tall pole out front. The sign had a spotlights shining on it.

I parked right in front of the building and the first thing I noticed is there were a few cars in the lot and they were empty. When I'm nervous I have to pee. I had to pee. I got out of the car and went toward the side of the building to pee.

As I was peeing I noticed 3 things: 1) not only were there lights on inside the empty building but there were Christmas lights -- shining brightly -- strung under the roof; 2) there was a camera on the corner of the building pointed right at me; 3) there were about 10 18 wheelers parked behind the building.

If you've ever seen *From Dusk Till Dawn*, the trucks reminded me of the trucks behind the Texas Titty Twister. It was creepy.

When I got back in the car, my drenched wife looked at me and asked if I had noticed anything odd. I told her about the trucks and she said that wasn't what she was talking about.

"When the wind blows really hard, the lights in the store dim but the Christmas lights get brighter." I was about to call b.s. on that when a gust of wind hit.

Sure enough, the lights inside the store almost went out but the Christmas lights got noticeably brighter. We sat there about a half an hour, hoping the storm was going to die down and watching the lights. Finally it got to be too much and we decided to get back on the road.

We poked along to the next exit and pulled off again. This time there was a much more modern, well lighted, occupied, gas station. We walk in, looking like drowned rats I'm sure. We all go to the bathroom, I pump gas, we get drinks and snacks, I smoke about a half a pack of cigarettes.

We stay there about an hour or so. The storm does die down a bit and we head home. We get home about an hour later, having survived the worst drive of my life.

Later when we were talking about it, we named that first place the Truckstop of Death. It's not that far from our house -- maybe 30 minutes under normal circumstances -- and we've often talked about driving back to take a look at it in the light of day. But we never have. I'm not sure I want to. What if it's not actually there?

Username: wjray

Was in the tornado in Joplin Missouri , may 22nd I think 2011? Too lazy to confirm. Was at home in my apartment and was getting a result weird feeling, was occasionally looking out my window and couldn't understand what my body was noticing was wrong outside.

I eventually got up and went outside and it was extremely quiet, but it wasn't like normal quiet, it was advanced quiet, like not that there wasn't noise but that noise that should've been there wasn't.

The air had a really odd tinge, kind of like everything in the matrix movies, green. Air raid sirens started going off and I remember my girlfriend at the time freaking out because she heard from a friend or something that a tornado had touched down at the other side of town.

Naturally we hopped in the car and went to see what was going on, we got to a park that was open enough to see the full scale of what was going on, it was a massive black funnel cloud, probably the biggest singular thing I've ever seen in my life. We were listening to the radio and they were, not in a calm way, telling people to seek shelter.

We ended up heading to the building we worked at just as the people on shift we're ordering everyone to get under their desks, then everyone was moved to a hallway and were screaming that the tornado was coming down the block towards us. We had friends there and wanted to get them out which is funny enough why we went.

We huddled with everyone else and the building was shaking , not too much though. A few minutes later people are trickling towards the front to see what's up, fuckers were so wrong, it wasn't even near us.

All the cars in the parking lot had debris on them but nothing serious. You could see the tornado but it wasn't really near us and was moving away.

It disappeared shortly after and we only then realized it was in the direction of our apartment, we start driving there and it's just surreal, an entire forested area is just...

one, it looks like someone took a giant scythe and just leveled it out, ponds off the road were empty, trees were on the road, cars crumpled up like discarded paper balls.

I'll always remember seeing this black hummer 3 crushed up like a beer can, and seeing a few dead people , according to what I later found out someone had been pulled out of their sun roof.

Houses on hills were nothing but cement foundations , stores were destroyed , academy sports , a Walmart , home depot, hundreds of houses and over a hundred people died.

The whole event seems like one moment, even while driving around we passed through an area that felt like the air was 90% natural gas and found out a main was broken and shooting into the air.

Username: Dracanherz

My story may not have been as crazy as others, but I live on a small Pacific island. Now there's at least one typhoon warning ever year, at times school would be cancelled.

It's like "Yay, a free holiday" because they always called the warning, cancelled the next school day, and then next day it's bright and shining. There hasn't been a strong one to reach us in many years.

So, as it happens, two years ago was a particularly strong one. Power went out, me and my family were huddled in our apartment building on the ground level. I thought it was just one of the stronger ones.

So I lay in darkness on my bed wondering what I'm going to do with my free time tomorrow. Then, from the crash from the window, it was clear what I'd be doing was tending to an actual disaster aftermath.

So behind the shutters, the glass still managed to break, and water had been seeping through under the front door so the area was just getting all wet. This was my first real disaster, so I had no idea what damage was actually done. It's scary to finally realize, the next morning, how devastating a typhoon can be.

Let me add, there was this barbecue shack that opened out in-front of the building. I was too busy seeing all the sign debris and fallen telephone poles to notice the entire damn shack was blown away.

There was no debris of it either, the typhoon must've blown it far off. On this island there's a bunch of tin houses and driving through the aftermath, it's was crazy to think I use to live in a tin house.

Needless to say, the tin houses were mostly blown apart. Everyday we had to drive to water stations, because there was no power for weeks until they fixed the poles.

Waiting in line for water, gas, food. It was humbling for sure. Everyone was pretty much in the same boat. It's just amazing how a typhoon can bring a community together.

If I had to compare, it's living a middle-class life to suddenly living a '3rd-world' life. That certainly taught me the real life extent of natural disasters. Thankfully no one I knew had died

There was another incident, but with an earthquake about six months ago. It was a 7.7 magnitude one. However, I was off-island on vacation with my mom and sister.

I've been part of a disaster and a bystander of one, and being a bystander is horrible. As soon as as we heard I was horribly worried about my dad. He didn't pick up after several tries.

Thank god when he answered, it turned out to be nothing. I suppose it was too far off? Not knowing if a loved one is okay or not is just torture. Natural disasters suck

Username: KuraiChanZ

In September 2013, Colorado had a lot of flooding across the front range. Unusual because there's hardly any rivers here, and in my 26 years here I've never seen nor heard of flooding of this magnitude in the state. But it had rained a lot the night before, especially in the mountains.

When it stopped raining, my BF and I drove down to the St Vrain river to see how high the river had risen. There were tons of people watching and taking photos/video, the water was just to the bottom of the bridge but not overflowing onto the street.

After about 5 minutes we get back in the car to leave, drive through a puddle, and the car dies. We push it into a lot in front of this warehouse about 1 block from the river and get on the phone with our mechanic.

Pretty much everyone else looking at the river had cleared out, and we are standing there trying to solve the problem when we hear someone calling our names.

We look up (away from the river) and my BF's mom is standing there, she randomly came to check out the river too.

We are shouting over to each other explaining what's going on, when suddenly about 2+ ft of water comes rushing between the buildings. A damn had broken upstream and we were in the middle of a flash flood.

We grabbed what we could and made our way over to where his mom was and tried to figure out the best way to get the hell to get out of there. That was when I realized it was real.

We linked arms and trudged through a pretty strong current. There was a junk yard up stream so we just kept getting smacked in the legs with debris.

We get to some railroad tracks, and when we crossed the water had gotten to be about hip high.

There were people on the other side shouting at us to either keep going or turn back since there were still a few high up dry patches closer to the river.

We kept going since we were through the deepest part already, and made it out on the other side as the water rose another 2 feet.

Bonus: when we got back to the car a few days later, we figured it'd be a total loss, if it was even there anymore. Because the building was blocking the water and the parking lot was just high up enough, the water only got about and inch high inside the car. It fired right up.

Oh and those railroad tracks we crossed had the ground washed away from beneath them, they looked like roller coaster tracks once the water finally receded.

Username: dressyjessybessy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGJmOeDEBtw

I was in this. So here's my day: I wake up to rumbling but assume it is an earthquake. So I roll over.

When I get up, I gather my stuff, stomach is grumbling, but I assume I can hit the Taco Bell on the way to work.

I hit the road and find that all the stoplights are down, and fuck, Taco Bell is closed. Whatever, I'll eat out of the breakroom machines. Who gives a shit. I also wonder why there is such a lack of traffic.

Suddenly, rain starts pouring. It's So Ill, so what? I keep driving but I start noticing people pulling to the side of the road. I found this interesting. However, I keep driving.

I turn into the parking lot of my employer, and this was my SHIT IS REAL MOMENT.

There was a sign that said only employees could park here. It had already blown away. It sat on a wooden signpost. (only a 2x1) When I saw, not the sign, but the fucking signpost flipping towards me and denting the hood of my car, I immediately pulled into a handicap spot.

I seriously sat in my car for a minute, assuming it would blow over. Oh fuck no. The large debris being thrown at me made me afraid the windshield was going to shatter.

So: back seat? Dude, just get inside. Deep breaths. Just get inside. It's just about 25 feet. Just fucking get inside.

I bundle myself as quickly as possible as I can see the situation is rapidly getting worse, take a final deep breath, and run! I can barely keep balance, and when I can finally see the front doors, there I see the entire management staff standing at the glass windows, obviously watching for dipshits like me.

I get to about 7 feet from the entrance when a huge gust of wind strikes. It threw my glasses from my face, but most incredibly, it LITERALLY PICKED ME UP FROM THE GROUND. Seriously: over a foot into the air. The director of my department rushed out and pulled me up like "soldier, fucking world war, go! go! go!"

We were under martial law for the next three days. Everyone cooked out so the meat wouldn't go bad, and my brother was a badass since he had a bunch of gas and a generator.

edit: I left the house in the eye of the storm. Just so you get it. And I stood blind, as people asked if I was ok. "I'm fine, just want my glasses." They broke on a metal pole over six feet from the point where I landed. My director helped me find the lense that popped out and went a few feet further.

I weighed around 190 lbs. Seriously, lifted into the air. Not pushed over. Carried. Tossed.

Username: [deleted]

I live in SoCal, and there have been many, many wildfires. I've directly had them affect me more than earthquakes have, and they terrify me every time they happen.

I remember one in 2003, where everyone in my family the city over, had to be evacuated to my house, and then my house had to be evacuated.

We never saw the flames, but it wasn't great. Then 2007, I was a manager at a store, and had to shut down early due to being evacuated, and then my home being evacuated soon after.

My family and friends always kind of joked about the fires out here, we took evacuations seriously, but the fires never were too close to any of us.

2014 takes the cake though. The fire was set by a young girl, a city over, and it spread all the way over to my city, within a day.

I remember being at work that morning, and seeing smoke in the far distance, and thinking about how much time we all had and how meh, it's not a big deal, we'll be okay. And that was true, I worked my shift and we all went home as usual.

I was home for a few hours and everything was fine, and I even fell asleep for a nap, until my husband woke me up, panicking, police were outside our apartment complex on the loud speakers, telling us to evacuate, the roads were packed, we were terrified of where to take our animals, and I'll never forget leaving our place.

I saw the reflection of the sky on the remaining cars in our parking lot first, how orange everything was, and ash was everywhere.

The smell hit me next, it was so strong and just slapped me in the face, and I never felt panic like that before in my life, just typing it is making me anxious.

Looking up into the sky, as we pulled away in our car with our animals and minimal possessions, and seeing flames, and how close they came to our apartment in the span of about three hours. How the sky changed from beautiful and clear, to this hellish apocalypse in such short time, will always make me afraid of fire.

Luckily, we were able to go an hour north to my in laws, and we were ordered away for a day, and everything was okay, but I'll never forget how angry I was about that particular fire, especially since it had been started by a bored teenager, and caused millions of dollars of damage, and tons of heartache in the communities affected.

In short, don't fuck with fire. Especially here, California is real good at being on fire, and living where I do, I always get nervous certain times of year. Especially with those god damn Santa Ana winds.

Username: CitrusFeline

I was working and going to school in Florida at the time, being from Boston, and working at a golf course/driving range.

I was outside the back of the main building (which had auto-sliding doors) standing behind a bunch of people and a couple Golf Pro's.

My buddy from Boston who moved down there with me was standing with me as well, just kind of watching the lessons going on. About 10 minutes prior we were in the main building and someone inside mentioned that there was currently a tornado warning.

Can you see where this is going? Well being from up north, i'd never witnessed a tornado, and being that we heard them (tornado warning) fairly regularly, we didn't think twice about it.

So, about ten minutes after the fact my buddy and myself were standing there, and we saw across the huge field that was the driving range, a funnel shaped mass about 500 yards away.

I was in awe and it took me longer than it should have to react, not realizing how strong the winds outside the twister can be.

So while I am standing there, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, everyone runs back into the building behind us. I hear yelling behind me and turn to look back and see everyone yelling for me to run to the building.

I turn back around for just a last glimpse and I see an wooden Adirondack chair (like 40 lbs) that was maybe 15 feet in front of me lift up off the ground and come flying over my head. Fuck. I turn and high tail it towards the building, seeing people gathered by the closed automatic door.

As I am running, a shed that housed a lawnmower was lifted up and flung over me, over the building, and landed on the back of one of the Pro's truck, smashing it up pretty bad.

This I was told by everyone who was standing watching me run towards them and the building.

When I get to the building the auto-sliding door doesn't open as it should. It took at least 3-4 people to pull the thing open, which took about 5 seconds.

Those were the longest 5 seconds in my life.
Upon getting inside, we ran to the bathroom and got down on the floor. To this day, i'm not sure if that is the proper thing to do.

This tornado touched down in a neighborhood across the street and killed two people. I am very lucky to be alive. Thanks for reading.

Username: andy83991