Have you ever been involved in a natural disaster of any type and want to share your experiences?

Anything from floods to cyclones ... earthquakes to volcano eruptions, tell us about it.

Last Year, I experienced one-EARTHQUAKE(which was in Seattle, but we could feel it up here in Canada!) It happend about like 9:30 am, I was in Keyboarding class and suddenly the ground began to shake...then the computers automatically shut off. I thought it was like a blackout or something, as for the ground shaking...the ground shoke sometimes while we rolled around in our chairs so i didn't think too much of it. The the shaking became a bit more forcing and then i realized something was goin on...my keyboarding teacher came bursting in from the business office and yelled 'Earthquake, get under somewhere!' I first went under the computer table, then my quick intuation alerted me by saying what if the computer collapsed through the desk...so i quickly got up(the ground still shaking) and darted across the asile to a more 'stabler' table which had the previous years grad pictures on it, frammed and everything(smart thinking for me...i didn't realize the glass frames until later) then i ducked and covered and counted out loud for 60 seconds. The earthquake quickly ended and i was soo freaked out after it. I was also very concerned for my sister(going to an old middle school at the time at a building not very sturdy and all!), my mom who was working in a two story office, and my poor defenceless rabbit who was home alone directly underneath a lamp!
I forgot to mention, the high school i go to was very new and had the latest earthquake proof stuff, and the only thing that happend was the building rocked side to side.

Indeed Copago, I've lived through a few earthquakes and typhoons. Several of the earthquakes that I survived occurred during my 2 year stay in Taiwan, a very active place geologically. All of the earthquakes happened at night and woke me up...sometimes in a mild panic. Of course my wife slept through them, being the stalwart sleeper that she is and hence I was forced to wake her in my panic. "Honey, it's just an earthquake, go back to sleep," she exclaimed, half asleep. After she once again settled into dreamland I sat up wondering how anyone could say 'just an earthquake'!

The typhoons, also in Taiwan, were exciting adventures for us. On the positive side, we got the day (or days) off of work while the typhoons made their slow, arduous way across the island. Miraculously, the power stayed on the entire time and we were able to watch the cable weather news as they followed the typhoon cutting its swath through our backyard. It was amazing to see the streets flooded up to 2 or 3 feet deep just below our apartment, and more amazing was the fact that some brave individuals were, for some odd reason, fording their ways through the waste deep water even during the most violent periods of the storms!

Unfortunately, following the massive rainfall we found that our motorcycle engine had been flooded and were forced to discard it. But what the hell, it was worth the excitement!

I am faraway from major trenches or hot spots; but from what I know we are all experiencing some kinda shake, some more than others as the plate moves all the time.

I've felt a few. In California we had plenty of earthquakes that we felt in the central area of the State. I remember mostly bookcases shaking against the wall and then cracks in the dirt at school. We always practiced for the "big one" by getting beneath our desks too.
In Hawaii, we had many tsunami warnings, the watch is worse though, that means it's going to hit, the warning is it might! Then we had a pretty big earthquake in terms of shaking. I was in a large apartment building and people outside screamed and the dogs all barked.
In France I've had a few more. The computer monitor the last time was shaking something fierce and I told my co worker to cut it out!

Memphis Tennessee we had two or three tornado warnings. Now that was scarier than anything else, as the temperature drops dramatically and the sky turns yellow and it gets hot outside.

The east coast isn't known for quite as many things, but we experienced the winter of 93, a succession of 13 ice and snowstorms and the roads were closed by state troopers. Power was out for a long time too.
The northern states would just call us weather wimps though!

In October 1989 I was on the upper deck of Candlestick Park waiting for game three of the World Series to start when the so called Loma Prieta earthquake hit. When it happened, I didn't really think it was all that serious, maybe a 4.0 Richter scale shaker. Right after the main quake was over(many small aftershocks followed) the crowd of 65,000 fans let out a huge cheer. I guess this was mainly because we were glad it had stopped, and everyone there seemed to be okay. Pesonally I cheered for these reasons and also because I thought it was some kind of sign that the Series was about to turn in the Giants favor, the A's were up at that point two games to none. As I turned out, The A's swept the Giants 4-0, boo hiss! It wasn't until later when I got down off the stadium and saw the pictures of the collapsed section of the Bay Bridge and the fires burning in the Marina district on a friend's portable TV that I realized how bad it was. The real fear on everyone's minds was that the city would burn much as it had in 1906. It didn't happen, of course, but at the time it seemed like a real possibility. Took us about two and a half hours to get out of the parking lot because all the traffic signals in the city were not operating due to the power outage. The drive back to my house on the other side of town was really eerie. No lights except for cars, people standing around in front of their houses looking stunned, sirens screaming off in the distance . It seemed like the city had been transformed into some gigantic Hollywood backlot that had been done up for a apocalyptic horror movie. Surreal and very weird. Luckily, there was no real damage at my house, about the worst was that some of water had sloshed out of my aquariums onto the living room floor. The store where I worked hadn't fared so well. One of the huge plate glass windows at the front had crashed down, and my boss, Carol was close to hysterical when I got there. She was convinced that the looters were on their way, and insisted that we stay there over night to protect the business. They never came, but that was one nervous night, to be sure.

In retrospect the most amazing thing about this whole experience was that when the quake happened
nobody in the stadium panicked. If they had, it could have gotten real ugly, real fast. Personally, I think it was almost a miracle that no one got trampled or crushed or hurt in any way at Candlestick that evening. It's certainly a testament to the calm, laid back nature of bay area residents in general and the local baseball fans in particular. Don't try to tell this to the Dodgers or or their fans. They wouldn't believe that Giants fans could be this mellow. But that's another story.....

[ 04-30-2002, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: tim10001 ]

I experienced the hundred years flood in Vietnam on my family and friends trip. The whole city was engulfed by water. We were living on food reserve from the hotel; there were basic transportation like dinghy boats e.t.c. As car and buses were consumed by flood, we had to use candles and clean our selves with rainwater. A short experience of the doldrums, as nature strike.

Can't say that we really have "big" disasters over here ... but in the last twelve months where I am we've had two noticeable earthquakes - probably pathetic two point zero's on the Richter ... but big enough to make you wonder about the real thing!!

Anyway we make up for it by living through 11 months of rain per annum !!

i've just checked the history on the last of the quakes ... 4.1 on 28/10/01.

Tim, they've said that the game actually saved lives, in that folks had split from work early to watch it on TV, and so they weren't stuck on the roads that collapsed. That road to Alameda Oakland was the scariest for me, as it was just like a sandwhich. It is a double decker highway and the top just collapsed on the bottom.

Now I was on the East Coast, but most of my family is there in that area. And the first thing they showed were the fires burning on TV in SF. I called like any dummy, as my parents are in Sacramento, but I wanted to know if cousins were ok. And the folks didn't answer, called the next sib on the line, got to my brother in law who said, "yeah, we felt it, but we're ok."
My mother was in a car and said it felt like you were getting a flat tire, or some people equate it to a heart attack...slight nauseating movement.
My cousin in SF was fine.
Like many things, it seems to be a matter of chance where you are when the thing hits.
The tornado in Memphis hit the bluffs on the Arkansas side of the border and flattened a grocery store with a few people in it for shelter.
sad story.

Hi Heather, I know someone who was driving on the top southbound deck of the Cypress structure in Oakland when it came down during that '89 quake. He said the roadway started pitching and twisting like waves on the ocean and he managed to get almost to a stop when the road dropped out from under his car. When it first started he said he thought he was having a severe acid flashback but then quickly realized it was really happening. His car, an Acura Legend, was totalled, the body looked fine, but the frame and suspension was damaged beyond repair from the 15 foot drop. He wasn't seriously injured but he did have a cracked sternum from his seatbelt. It took a while for him to get down off the wrecked roadway. There were no fire crews in the area, but a roofing contractor who happened to be in the area
stopped and used the ladders he had on his truck
to rescue several people including my friend. By the time he climbed down the ladder to the ground
there was a news crew there from one of the local stations, KTVU I think, and they got a shot of him coming down the ladder carrying a bag of groceries.
In his stunned state, he somehow didn't want to leave those groceries behind. For a long time after this he had an extreme phobia about driving over or under any kind of bridge or freeway overpass. And I
can't say that I blame him. He's pretty much over it now, though.

I just visualized what you said, and I can imagine he doesn't want to take bridges or anything. Just got home from my first visit in a long time, and I was so shocked at the waves of traffic that I felt small! Everyone drives massive vehicles back home!
I don't remember which year it was in Los Angeles but we were trying to locate my parents as they were on a trip in their motorhome, it was in January I think. And then finally we found out they were close to the epicenter and mom accused dad of rocking the thing, then he saw the fires start up. They went into my cousin's house, and for a while there, they used the motorhome facilities as everything was cut off.
Was it in the early nineties?

Earthquakes must be the scariest of them all ... having little to no warning of impending disaster sounds terrifying.

I've been through a couple of droughts, nothing too bad, both times it has rained in the nick of time before stock started dying. Although they were getting a bit on the skinny side. We were lucky that we had enough water in dams and with wells so that saw us through.

A couple of years ago we had huge rains ... our annual rainfall is 9 inches and over one and a half days we had 6 inches. The ground just couldn't handle all that water and started to come towards the house. Jack had to get out on the tractor (God, this story sounds so country ) and put in trenches through a little sandhill so the water would head another way. It was coming pretty quick and all the dogs got flooded out and the motor garage/workshop as well.

All the water that got diverted went into a swamp and was about 3 feet deep and maybe 2 kilometres around which is a lot of water and I'm sure would have gone through the house had we left it to run its own course. The house has been here 96 years and only once before had it nearly been flooded, so it was an extraordinary event.

Three houses in the area were flooded out but the main problem was that some stock were caught on little islands created by the water. The army was brought in to air lift cattle and sheep from these islands or if there was few stock and the island was large enough to drop food down for them. I'm not sure of final figures but in the whole area there was over 5,000 sheep and 1,000 head of cattle that were killed.

Well, along iwth Bruyere and tim10001, I live also in California and have been through a lot of the earthquake here. I remember so well the one in 89 that I had come home from working in a copy shop and my internal house was all fine basically, but I went out into the garage and found havic. Everything was in the center of the garage and in big heep of stuff. a tv broken and sorted other items that had to be trashed. However I went to work the next morning and found that all the paper cases against the walls were dumped onto the floor, paper was everywhere. So being the Manager there of course it was my wonderful duty to clean it up. Of course all of my employees showed just as I was finishing.

Thats definately something I will never forget.

tazzly

I recall vividly the bushfires of 1994 and Black Christmas 2001.

West of my city of Sydney lie the Blue Mountains, so named because of the vast number of eucalyptus or gum trees (the foliage makes the mountains look blue). They may look attractive, but they can burn very easily!

Every few years, Mother Nature decides the undergrowth needs to be cleared and the mountains are usually the first to erupt.

In January 1994, the worst fires in living memory struck with a vengeance. I was looking after a neighbours swimming pool while they were away on holidays and although we were at least 10 kilometres from the fire-front I was scooping out ash and burnt leaves by the bucketful every day. The neighbours could not return home from their holiday venue because access to Sydney was closed in every direction.

Last Christmas Day, it all happened again. Mother Nature, with ample help from people (idiots) with matches, struck again. Fires raged over much of the state with firefighters brought in from other states, and even from overseas- A special thanks to 'Elvis', the water-bombing helicopter we borrowed from the Americans- trying to control all the outbreaks. When a fire can jump over major rivers, and can outrun a truck, it is time to get very concerned.

The last fire was not contained until mid-January, but by that time many houses were lost.

The constant smoke and the eerie blood-red appearance of the sun is something I do not want to experience again, even though I know it will happen in the future....

I live in southwestern Ontario (Canada) ... I have felt the odd rumbling of an earthquake. (At least 3 mild ones that I can definitely recall.) Yes, they do occur in Ontario/Canada as well. The latest one I can recall was in Sept.1998. It registered 6.5 (I think) and the epicenter was up near Sudbury (Ontario -- Canada) There's a fault line up there too.
What we felt was minor, but the dishes and house, etc. shook enough to wake me up from a short afternoon nap --- my husband was up at the top of the silo (it was silo filling time here on the farm) and said the silo had a pretty good sway to it -- no damage was done.

We also get the occassional tornado go through here. The major one (minor by U.S.A. standards) occurred on August 7, 1979 at around 6:30 or 7 p.m.. My Dad and I were just finishing up milking our cows when the hydro went out. We had noted about 15 minutes earlier that the sky was "greenish-yellow" ( a really eerie sight to see) and the air was very heavy and still. We commented that someone was going to get (or getting) a heck of a storm out of it. Little did we realize the truth of our words. Worth noting here is that other than the colour of the sky and our hydro going off we had no effects from it -- no rain, no wind, no nothing.
Around 7:30 p.m. we got a call from a close family friend telling us that Woodstock (just a few minutes drive away) had been hit by a tornado --- it had touched down near Hickson ( a little village north of Woodstock, the travelled south touching down again in the south west part of Woodstock, then travelled on south touching down again in the village of Oxford Centre, Vanessa, and so on. Many of my school friends lived in or very near Oxford Centre, so the next day we went there to see if we could help with the cleanup. I will never forget what I saw as we arrived at Oxford Centre. The road leading into the village had a slight rise to it. There was no sign of any damage whatsoever at the farms on the road, not even the 2 that were just next to the Oxford Centre Road signs halfway up the hill --- but when we reached the top of the hill and could see what was on the other side we just stopped and stared for a few minutes. What had been a village of 100 to 150 houses no longer existed ... there was absolutely nothing left of them --- just holes in the ground (the houses had disappeared completely level with the ground). There wasn't even any debris to clean up, just holes in the ground where the houses had been. (The debris had all been deposited in the local swamp in Oxford Centre, and some of it is still there.) Note these were all very well built and mostly fairly new homes that I am talking about here that had just disappeared. The houses were rebuilt, and today the village is well and thriving. Two people were killed in Oxford Centre.
We ended up helping the family of another friend from school --they lived on the outskirts of Woodstock on a dairy farm. Their house was untouched, while their barn, just yards away had been wiped out.
As it turns out, it had gone through the back end of my future husband's farm (we had not even met at that time), toppling the main hydro line which runs throughor property, and did major damage in the swamp just down the road (about 1 mile)from that farm/ the farm where my husband and I live. Some of our farm neighbours where I now live lost some of their buildings to, including my husband's aunt and uncle.
Another person we know was driving home from Woodstock when the tornado hit --- their car was picked up, then put back down in the other lane, facing the opposite direction from what they had been going.

Another tornado hit the area a couple of years ago. This time the little village of Norwich took the brunt of it (damage was very light in this case) and took down several trees going down our road. Damage was mostly to trees in this one (only a few houses, and 1 church had damage, and most of the damage to houses was caused by trees/tree limbs landing on them.

I live in Eastern Canada. In the winter of 1998 we suffered a disastrous ice storm. There was billions of dollars worth of damage. Electrical lines were down everywhere from the weight of the ice. Buildings, homes, cars were damaged. Electrical power was out in some places for weeks. Whole cities ground to a halt. Some people were suffering from severe cold due to no way of heating their homes. The elderly were really hit hard. It was something I woulnd't want to experience again any time soon.!

Actually, I'm living through a terrible natural disaster right now. There has been rain for about 4 days here in the Czech Republic and the Vltava river, which goes up through the centre of the country and through Prague, is flooding badly. A lot of Prague is underwater and they say these are the worst floods in the country's history.

The situation, however, is as under control as it can be. I was surprised tonight because 4 out of 5 major on-line news sites describe thousands of citizens 'fleeing' the city. This is an interesting choice of words. When I think of 'flee' I think of last-minute chaos, which is something that hasn't happened here at all. Two days ago it was suggested to people in areas that were threatened by water that if they wanted to visit their cousin Max in the mountains, now would be a good time to do it. For people who haven't left, there has been systematic, organized evacuation, shelters are everywhere and aid is already pouring in from all over the country and beyond. There have been no traffic jams, no lines of people carrying things on their heads and certainly no panic. The historic core of the city looks like it will be ok too. Although the river is still expected to rise a little overnight, the centre is far enough away from its banks not to be affected. The big danger was from water backing up through the sewer system, but teams have been working to sandbag the sewers all day and it looks like everything is going to be ok.
In my city there has been a little flooding, but nothing compared to Prague, Ceske Budejovice, Pisek, and all the other beautiful towns along the Vltava. What a horrible mess. It takes a natural disaster to bring home how relatively helpless we are.

I'm so glad you came in to telll us about the floooding, Dobrov. I was thinking about you when I was watching the news this morning and hoping that everything was okay. Water is such a huge force and it's nice to know that the situation is under control as much as possible.

I'm sorry, but I had to giggle at your comment about visiting cousin Max in the mountains.

Well let's hope Uncle Max is grilling something nice right now. This morning I hear the water level has dropped slightly, and people are starting to think about how they're going to clean up. The big worry is the Charles Bridge. It isn't in very good shape and for the last year or so people have been making noises about finding the money to do some major shoring up. A lot of the baroque palaces in Mala Strana are owned by businesses, hotels or they're embassies and they'll be repaired right away. The bridge, on the other hand, is (like the teachers) a state employee, so to speak, and money isn't going to be easy to find. And the national library is in the Carolinium, right on the shore. All the reference material is on the main floor and for sure they didn't have time to move all that stuff upstairs. Oh no there's also Fischer Book Store on the next corner. Oh no. This is so depressing.

I'm still waiting to hear about the elephant, though. They evacuated most of the animals from the zoo yesterday, but they thought one of the elephants would be ok because he was on high ground. Then the river rose so high, and they couldn't walk him out because apparently this is not a friendly elephant and he won't let anyone near him. Last thing I heard was that they had given up the boat idea and were calling for a pump because he was swimming. I really hope he's ok.

We're going out this morning to buy a lot of cleaning stuff, which is what they're requesting. A metric ton of Ajax and Cif is what they need right now.

I heard on the news that the elephant Dobrov mentioned had to be shot. And also a gorilla is thought to have drowned after it escaped during the zoo's evacuation.
CNN flood story

Yes, the elephant's gone, and two penguins are on the loose somewhere. The library they say is ok except that the catalogues and computer system are badly damaged. Oh no! Obviously this is good news for people who don't use libraries. The water has gone down a little in Prague and some people can go home this morning, but it's going to be a wait for others. Many of the hospitals have been evacuated, and even parliament is now up at the castle.

The towns to the west - Plzen, Melnik, Usti nad labem, Karlovy Vary and others - are getting the brunt now. :Plzen is still under about 3 meters of water and is a spectacular mess. I would highly recommend that anyone who would like to do something drink as much Pilsner Urquell as they can, because the big brewery has shut down and has suffered considerable damage. They could use the support. Yesterday we collected cleaning stuff for Plzen, which is what the most need right now. Parts of Austria and Germany have also been badly hit - Salzburg is a mess, although Vienna is ok. The situation in Dresden is frightful. I hear that the water is rising in Bratislava, but no news so far this morning.

Most of the deaths (about 12 now, I think) were either from shock or heart attacks, or people doing something stupid, like going out in a canoe. There have been a lot of last-minute rescues, especially in the south, but these have been people who refused to go while they had the chance. On the TV and radio they have been begging people to evacuate when they're told to. Otherwise, someone who could be doing something more useful is going to have to get into a little boat and rescue your butt.

The biggest problem has been getting around. I have two friends staying with me who are from Ceske Budejovice and they don't want to even try to get home till tomorrow. A lot of the roads are still flooded or badly damaged, and most of the the trains are out. The official highway speed now in affected areas is 30 kph. A lot of people on holiday in the mountains are still holed up there, a lot of families are seperated.

I have to say that the government has just been splendid, though. The minister for the Interior, Stanislav Gross, is about 32 and although many people thought the situation was way over his head, so to speak, it's amazing how he's handled everything. Even the opposition has some grudging words of praise. The state radio and tv stations have also provided current, informative and non-theatrical coverage.

Despite the high points, this is an almost unmitigated disaster that is going to just keep happening. The school year for a lot of kids is in jeopardy, the fields in flooded areas are not going to be ready for next summer and as this has happened now, they don't hold out much hope of a thorough dry-out before winter, as the autumns here are rainy. Maybe we'll get lucky.

I am so lucky to be living in one of the few regions in the country not to have been affected. Everyone here is doing what they can, everyone is in shock. All I know is this country has had more than it's share of misery in the 20th century and it survived, and it's going to survive this one too.

Ok, finally some good zoo news. Gaston the seal made it back in time for lunch today and they caught Julichka somewhere, which leaves about 4 seals still AWOL. Two hippos are still at liberty as well. The minister for the interior, Stanislav Gross, was on the TV this morning looking really exhausted and really cross. because apparently in Usti, where things are just starting to happen, people are reluctant to be evacuated. He pointed out that they had the chance to see what happened to people in Prague and especially Ceske Budejovicewho didn't leave when they had the chance - lots of shots of little rubber rafts, one outstretched arm, a concrete pylon and water moving at about 1777 kilometers per minute. Gross was really ticked and pointed out that the rescuers have a lot more important things to do. Then he then added that there were about 6 large pleasure craft now drifting towards bridges and everyone was told to moor their boats securely and now someone was going to have to deal with this or blow up the boats. If your jacht ended up in about 1,000,000 pieces, he didn't feel responsible. The the announcer (heh heh) said thank you Mr. Ministr and we all know things are going to get better. Gross looked really surprised and then said yes yes of course. But he was great.
Then a fireman came on and ponted out that people would hide from them when they came around for the first time, but a couple of hours later when they were on their roofs clinging to their tv radar they were waving like mad. Then someone has to bring a helicopter and strap them to a cable and haul them up. Only for those keen on dangling 100 meters above terra firma.

The water is down a little in Prague, but things are way not over yet. Bratislava, watch out.

Jippie! I made it out of Prague!

Dobrov, the way you describe the situation in Prague is not exactly what I experienced... It might have been perfectly organized for Czech citizens, but tourists were just kicked out of their ho(s)tels with no place to go. I know that the people in Prague probably had enough to worry about (at least the tourists didn't have flooded homes), but for me it was a terrible experience. Luckily the hostel where I was staying was on a hill, but the train I was supposed to get wasn't going, so I spent two days at the station, without any information wahtsoever. The only thing announced in the metro stations was "the 50 year flood is about to reach Prague. Please stay calm in any situation.". That's pretty hard to do when all you hear are sirenes and no one can tell you what's going on!!

I do really feel sorry for all the people who have no homes anymore though, because when I finally managed to get on a train out of the Czech Republic I got to see the real damage. There was water on both sides of the railway and we had to go very very slowly, because it wasn't sure the railway was able to carry the weight of our train. We saw people sitting on the roof of their house carrying torches...
At least I'm home now, but they have to start all over again without a home.

I'm glad you're ok. I was wondering about you and hoping you'd been and gone earlier. I'm glad everything turned out ok. This morning in the paper they had an article about the tourists - the ones like you, in hostels. Were you in Karlin? There are a lot of hostels there and the problem was especially bad. People like Sean Connery staying in 5 star hotels got moved to other 5 star hotels, but backpackers were not informed about much. People reported being instructed to do...something, but as the instructions were given in Czech, it didn't help much.

Well, that's a pretty spectacular first trip to Prague! And again, I'm really glad you're safe at home.