Natural disasters at your place?

[Atroxell]

Living in California, I've experienced everything from earthquakes to tornadoes (small, but tornadoes nonetheless) to floods and wildifires. I live not too far from the area where the "Rim Fire" occurred. Over 400 square miles burned. While we did not get any fire in our area, we did live with ash fall and smoke from the fire for a couple of weeks. I've spent days working with neighbors building sandbag dikes and "sheltering in place" during periods of unstable weather with tornadoes spawning within 20 miles of my house. So, California is not always a weather paradise.

 

[Joe4]

Quite frankly, I don't know how people near the San Andreas fault and Tornado Alley live there. Your natural disasters are much worse than ours. I'll take a foot or two of snow over that any day of the week. We just hunker down and ride it out! Usually no permanent damage.

Now ice storms are a different story. Luckily, we only get one about every 10 years...

 

[Atroxell]

When you grow up in California, especially between San Francisco and Los Angeles, you pretty much get used to the idea of the ground shaking. Earthquakes are something to live with, that's all. Pretty much like every type of natural disaster. Wherever you live, you know there's a chance of rain, snow, typhoon, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, volcanic eruption, whatever. You just accept it might happen and go on with your life. Deal with it when it comes along, and be prepared.

I've seen the street ripple like the ocean for 30 seconds at a time. I've been in quakes that have thrown me on the ground. And I've experienced quakes that were more of a massage than disaster. The only good thing about an earthquake is that it's an "equal opportunity destroyer." If you can feel it so can thousands, and possibly millions, of others. You won't be there alone.

Tornadoes, on the other hand, seem like a personal message from the universe/creator/earth. It can hit you and your your house, but not your next door neighbor. THAT SUCKS!

 

[TinaP]

Tornadoes, on the other hand, seem like a personal message from the universe/creator/earth. It can hit you and your your house, but not your next door neighbor. THAT SUCKS!

It kind of does. Keep in mind, though, that if your neighbor's house is still intact, you may not have power but you have temporary shelter. At least if you get along with your neighbor. With so much of the devestation from hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes, the damage is SO widespread that proper shelter, food, water, and the like are dozens if not hundreds of miles away.

 

[Doreen17]

I grew up in a place where cold winters and snow were the worst scenarios possible, so it was a big surprise for me to find out that so many people live in the places with the chance of earthquake or tornado. Cold and snow are annoying, that's true, but they can't kill you. How do people live in places that they know can kill them?

 

[Atroxell]

I grew up in a place where cold winters and snow were the worst scenarios possible, so it was a big surprise for me to find out that so many people live in the places with the chance of earthquake or tornado. Cold and snow are annoying, that's true, but they can't kill you. How do people live in places that they know can kill them?

Firstly, you don't think or obsess about it. It is simply a fact of life. Worrying about it will only make you sick.

Secondly, you prepare for it. Always have a decent supply of food and water as well as emergency medical supplies and materials. FEMA says that you should always have 3 weeks of food on hand in the event of an emergency. That's a good start. And if you have the means, make sure you have enough to share in case your neighbor loses everything and has nothing. Water is the primary thing. You can live for a quite a while without food, but only a few days without water. A good water filter that can filter up to a million gallons of water is only about $60, so there's no excuse for not having one or two in sotrage.

And finally, have a plan. Families often work a long way from home. Make a plan to reunite after a disaster. Make a primary plan and accept that there may be enough chaos that the primary attempt will fail, so make a secondary plan for a later point in time. Call me paranoid, but my family and I have multiple plans for up to one year after catastrophe. If after one year we do not meet, the assumption is that it was a personal catastrophe as well as local/regional/global. Planning up to a year out also gives you something to look forward to and some emotional support to survive for at least a year.

 

[TinaP]

I just checked the National Weather Service website. Right now we're under a winter storm warning and a flood warning. Two days ago we had 11 very mild earthquakes (probably due to nearby injection wells). There's never a dull moment.

 

[Joe4]

Yesterday it was a beautiful sunny day and you could go ahead wearing only a light jacket or sweater.
Now, we are having blizzard like conditions, with heavy snow and winds (14-18 inches of snow and winds 25-35 MPH with gusts up to 50 MPH).

 

[BiocideJ]

In Florida, we mainly have to worry about hurricanes, lightning and the occasional small tornado. I know lightning sounds like an odd 'natural disaster' to list, but lightning strikes in Florida more per square mile then most anywhere else on the world, especially in the summer it seems. With hurricanes you at least have a pretty good heads-up that they are coming so I tend to fear them a little less. I lived here in '91 ('93?) when Hurricane Andrew came through and that was pretty intense though even though I was nowhere near the eye of the storm. Probably the most scared I have ever been was when I used to do A/C work and was on a roof when a CAT2 hurricane was passing by off the coast. Not a fun place to be with 50-60mph gusts.

 

[Atroxell]

Well, just out of sheer coincidence we got a tornado warning and a tornado on Wednesday evening. The town I live in was in the path. But at last minute the cell went to the south and hit the next town. I hesitate to even mention it because it was a whopping "F0" tornado. 10 houses were hit, with one house getting the worst of it--the tornado threw a picnic table against the house and damaged the wall and windows. Knocked down a section of fence. They're going to have to patch that hole of about 18 inches. And replace those windows. No one was hurt because most of the people in the neighborhood were down the street taking video of the weather. Sherriff was not happy with that bit of news.

My son (who has spent some time in Illinois and witnessed a real tornado) posted to his facebook that his friends should quit stressing about the "over-sized dust devils" that everyone was thinking were about to end civilization as we know it. I guess that demonstrates that the unfamiliar always terrifies, because none of these people posted a word about the earthquake we got a few months back.

This is the third year in a row we have had tornadoes in the Spring.

But, yeah, so...we get "tornadoes" in California's Northern Central Valley as well. Just not the humdingers the Midwest gets.