Any natural disasters in your town?

[RomerJon17]

Like for example:

*Tornadoes
*Hurricane
*Earthquake
*Thunderstorm
*Floods
*

[Saturnfly]

How come a thunderstorm is a disaster? xD

[Johnny_Bravo]

How come a thunderstorm is a disaster? xD

Like, a heavy thunderstorm combined with a hurricane and an earthquake!


In Europe, there aren't any real disasters beside smaller earthquakes in Italy/Croatia.

[annoainthere]

Well it really depends upon where you live, like where I live we have yearly cyclones, storms, and flooding that all vary in strength/size depending on the "if" of the lead up to the event. I suppose the strangest thing was the mini-tornado that ripped through a few suburbs the other week, very odd considering Australia doesn't get tornados... whatever is this world coming too.

[minimogut]

Minor flooding once every few years. This year was a bit worse, but as far as natural disasters go, we don't have many. I think there was a small earthquake that hit Montana and Idaho a long time ago, but I'm not sure.

[haricots]

F for Geography Quiz. That's the worst natural disaster happened to me until now.

[crocobaura]

We get earthquakes, usually small ones but every once in a while they are strong enough to cause damage to buildings. We also get some pretty powerful storms during which trees fall down or branches are torn off.

[Bodhie]

In 18 years , we only had ONE tinie earthquack...and all I remember was peoples running in their PJ to the street at 2.a.m. lol with their money and saving in their arms (and pillows) lol

Peoples doing/being stupid should be a natural disaster since the stupid thing they do/say come *sometimes* Naturally..like a second nature .

[malfoya]

In Europe, there aren't any real disasters beside smaller earthquakes in Italy/Croatia.

Maybe not big earthquakes or tsunamis, but we do have loads of snow storms and people dying from the cold weather, hurricanes (I was stuck at an island this christmas because of a hurricane that stopped about all traffic), floods, rock slides, avalanches.. Especially in countries with tall mountains. Up here in Norway we have had about everything this winter, but due to the little amount of people living these places we are lucky that it hasn't caused anything fatal so far.

Of course since it's not called a disaster until a lot of people and buildings are involved you are right on some level, but we do have the treats like everywhere else in the world.

[maxon]

Like, a heavy thunderstorm combined with a hurricane and an earthquake!

In Europe, there aren't any real disasters beside smaller earthquakes in Italy/Croatia.
Try telling that to the inhabitants of Pompeii. We do, in fact, have natural disasters in Europe, just not many in your lifetime obviously (so that must mean never right?). Northern Europe sits on continental crust on the inner part of the Eurasian plate and is less prone to earthquakes but southern Europe sits on the subduction zone between the African and Eurasian plates and is thus prone to both earthquakes and volcanos. There was that earthquake in Turkey last October for example. But we also get other problems such as weather events (mostly wind-related), tsunamis (Mediterranean and Atlantic), snow and landslides (there have been some very nasty events in the Alps), flooding etc. Not to mention that in the past, we have been overwhelmed by epidemics.

However, in a sense you are right - Europe avoids the worst of Earthquakes and volcanoes because of where it sits on the Eurasian plate and the worst of wind-related disasters because we don't sit in the hurricane zone. But the most important factor which prevents Europe from experiencing terrible disasters is the fact that, like other westernised areas of the world, it is relatively rich. This means buildings and housing are of higher quality and we have better and better organised emergency services. It is this, more than anything else, that prevents a lot of deaths.

[paksetti]

Oh hey now, thunderstorms get pretty severe where I live. It's not unusual to have one or two storms in the summer that blow out car windows or rip shingles off the roof. A couple weeks ago, there were a ton of tornadoes down here. For a bit it looked like once was going to hit us until it stopped about a mile short. Weather here is just ridiculous. "If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait five minutes.".

The funny thing is, the city tests the emergency sirens on the first wednesday of every month at noon, the emergency alert sirens started going off for real at 11:30.

[frankokomando]

A tornado went over my house once.

[mustluvcatz]

Tornadoes seem to have decided they like the area I live in a few years ago.

The kind of funny thing is that the area I live in doesn't seem to get the weather surrounding towns do. It can be storming like crazy- winds blowing things down/around, lightning, thunder rattling plates on the wall, 4 feet of snow.. and we'll have a few raindrops or a few flurries here. I've a theory that's because we're at a higher elevation but everyone else I know tells me that's not it- that this town isn't up higher. It's interesting to note that we have to go downhill at some point going to most other towns around here. But I don't know what I'm talking about.. silly people.

[Clashfan]

I grew up in the Panhandle region of Texas which is in the tornado belt some of my earliest memories are of storms. When I was about 6 there was one tornado that took out the house on either side of ours and also a good portion of the small town I lived in. That was a very frightening experience and one I don't wish to repeat. The clean up afterwards was massive of course but I did see one thing that really made an impression on me and that was of a drinking straw that had been impaled into a telephone pole. In addition we would have massive dirt storms where you could literally see the clouds of dust moving in from a great distance (it's very flat in this area of the country so you can see for many miles) once they hit you could see little and being outside was like having your skin removed with a sandblaster. This was back in the early 70's and I don't know that if that region still gets those type of storms, it was mostly an agricultural area with large farms back then and most of that has changed.

My family moved around a lot mostly in West Texas and Oklahoma when I was 11 we lived in yet another small West Texas town outside of Amarillo. It is in a canyon and during one summer of storms we had a serious flash flood. At the time we lived in an apartment building about 100 yards from a small creek. When the wall of water hit it took our family car, which was later found on the 8th green of the local golf course. The only reason we didn't lose everything is my parents barricaded the door of the apartment and bailed water for about 5 hours and the water didn't rise above the window level. I was taken out along with my sister via one window by firemen but my parents and brother refused to abandon our apartment, good thing as we didn't have flood insurance.

As an adult I lived on the East coast for many years and have experienced the wonders of Nor'easters and one blizzard. I now live in the Gulf coast region of Texas but fortunately I had not moved back before Ike although my elderly mother and older brother went through that hurricane. So I've seen and experienced quite a few natural disasters but have been very fortunate not to have lost any loved ones to a storm.

[simsample]

We just have rain.
http://www.atlasops.com/Floods%202b.jpg

[StardustX]

Not here, that I know of. I live about 10 miles from Philadelphia and there's been nothing since I moved here. There haven't even been many thunderstorms or anything.

My step-dad's town, Lenore WV, was hit with a tornado a few weeks ago, though. And my mom's town was just barely missed (two tornadoes hit on each town next to her town).
Last year, before I moved, there was an earthquake that I felt in Milton WV.
In late 2008-early 2009, there was an "ice storm" in Milton too. It snowed and rained and then froze over the roads, powerlines... Everything. It was way worse than it sounds but it looked really beautiful outside with all of that ice everywhere.
Our power was out for weeks, we cooked food using our fireplace. aha. We lived on a mountain too so we couldn't get to town to get any food or anything.

[Volvenom]

In Norway we've had trouble when all the snow in the mountains decides to melt all at the same time. Then because of the same mountains it creates landslades and take masses of dirt through valleys by the rivers. All the towns by the river is flooded. While further down in Europe the water kind of settles in the flat areas and takes forever to go away. Big cities down in Europe have half a meter of water and have to use boats to travel.

... ok, this may be a bit exaggerated :) ... or perhaps not.

[Riptide651]

Earthquakes and such, mainly due to the fact it was someone's bright idea to build a city on a fault line, and more just developed around it, 500 miles away around it.

[123blissb]

Oh hey now, thunderstorms get pretty severe where I live. It's not unusual to have one or two storms in the summer that blow out car windows or rip shingles off the roof. A couple weeks ago, there were a ton of tornadoes down here. For a bit it looked like once was going to hit us until it stopped about a mile short. Weather here is just ridiculous. "If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait five minutes.".
The funny thing is, the city tests the emergency sirens on the first wednesday of every month at noon, the emergency alert sirens started going off for real at 11:30.

Please, Texas. Our test sirens go off on the first TUESDAY of every month :giggler: . And, just 6 hours ago, ('round 2:30am) I was huddled in the bathroom with the dogs as the sirens went off. Nothing else in the world gets Okies moving faster. Up ALL night. And the emergency management people start using the speakers... Image a mix of static and siren, then a eerie voice that tells you better take shelter? Then you can hear it echoing around town as it ends? *omg we're all gunna die!*

Now its all sunny and cloud free. :wtf:

[Robodl95]

We never have any disasters... that is except 2011... which included my first tornado, earthquake, and major flooding.

[M.M.A.A.]

It was a long time ago that we had flooding and extreme thunder storms, even schools closed for a day. As for today, only minor T-storms. Maybe small tornadoes every once in a while.

[Ixyavi]

We get flooding here occasionally but I live up in the heights now so that doesn't really affect me anymore.

I grew up in Michigan and we got some nasty tornados occasionally and a lot of really extreme storming during the spring and summer. One of the number one reasons I moved away from there and to a place that doesn't experience extreme weather.

[vhanster]

My town don't get much disasters, thankfully, but the rest of the country isn't so fortunate. (There's two earthquakes this week. One was an 8-scale, and one was 5.6-scale, but none were close enough to my city)

[GigaRevival]

Do dust storms or extreme heat as natural disasters? Because where I live, we get 'em both and it's horrible.

In all seriousness, no - the weather where I live is pretty calm, minus the skin blistering, mind numbing, I would rather watch Glitter than go outside summer hotness of death.

[MsScribble]

Does my town's local council count?

[jmiles007]

Where I live we have lots of tornadoes but they rarely do any damage thankfully. We also had a big flood from a river that overflowed. In the winter we usually have lots and lots of snow. But other than that we don't have a whole lot of natural disasters going through here.

[Johnny_Bravo]

@maxon @malfoya:
True, I've forgotten Pompeii and snow storms. But hurricanes and floodings? Haven't heard of that in my lifetime. Only flooding I know was in the one of '53 in Zeeland (Netherlands) and parts of Belgium.

[elfinitty]

We sometimes get floods and it is horrible,not for me but for those who live in dangerous places.Some people get missed/die :( Also ,my country is on 'North Anatolian Fault'' so we got 2 big earthquakes within 12 years.Other than that,the other day we had a storm.It all happened in a second,I was having maths exam in the big hall then all the windows shut down,things fell down the roof,2 trees collided.The bridge traffic between Europe and Asia was stopped for while.All those were really scary!

[simsample]

@maxon @malfoya:
But hurricanes and floodings? Haven't heard of that in my lifetime. Only flooding I know was in the one of '53 in Zeeland (Netherlands) and parts of Belgium.
We have flooding in the UK quite commonly- in 2007 it was particularly bad and the government almost evacuated an entire city.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_Kingdom_floods


As it was, many thousands of people across the country were evacuated and/or made homeless, and several lost their lives. I would call that a pretty bad disaster!

[malfoya]

@maxon @malfoya:
True, I've forgotten Pompeii and snow storms. But hurricanes and floodings? Haven't heard of that in my lifetime. Only flooding I know was in the one of '53 in Zeeland (Netherlands) and parts of Belgium.

We had a hurricane where I'm from in Norway. It closed down all sea ways, loads of roads, roofs fled of building, one was even smashed, people I know was evacuated because they drove out on a bridge way and their car ended up in the sea. Nothing for the world news, but it definately happens :)

[Riptide651]

Well There was a 4.0 Earthquake today, just 14 miles from where I live..... During School....

[SuicidiaParasidia]

i live in earthquake country.
i really do think that earthquakes are the scariest natural disaster. of course, theres no denying that volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. are all scary as hell, but at least with those disasters, you have a chance of seeing it coming/going. you have a certain degree of time to react to it properly, or avoid it entirely. a quake cant be predicted, there isnt a whole lot you can do to prepare for one, you never know if one is just starting or ending, and the magnitude of it is always up in the air. theres no real "safe" place, even desks/tables can collapse and crush you. it just leaves you feeling rattled and afraid...

particularly the quakes that happen at night. nothing is freakier than waking up to the sensation of every single thing (including you) moving around when, up until then, nothing had been moving at all.

[leo06girl]

I live close to three of the places that were hit by the Alabama tornadoes last year.

[sundance93]

I love that you posted this on Friday the 13th. Was that intentional!!??

[TortureTheNannies]

My city gets a tornado once every 25 years, on average. We had a big flood one year. We get hurricane remnants - that's after the hurricane has left a coastal state like North Carolina. The only earthquakes here are minor, like 3.0 or less. I guess mining produces stronger shaking.

[Lennon7777777]

Here we get a bunch of constant earthquakes that are too small to feel, then a few a month that are feel-able.
And we've also got tsunamis to worry about because our bay is shaped like a "C".
And then there's the threat of hurricanes because we're in the middle of the Pacific!
And we get a tornado or water spout on the island like once every 30 years, but they're always weak.
And then there's the occasional flash-flooding we get because we get about 130 inches of rain a year (about 3250 ml.).
And the weather likes to change every half an hour.
And sometimes it feels so cold even though it never gets below 50 degrees Fahrenheit-and I'm really well adjusted to cold!
And then there's the fact that we're just about directly in the path of a dormant volcano.
I've just noticed I live in a very strange town

[SMartin_Sim2]

I live in North Texas, which has experienced every type of weather disaster except a direct hit by a hurricane, and that's only because we are more than 250 miles inland. There is a saying that if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes and it will change. Last month we had tornadoes that wrecked neighborhoods and tossed truck trailers around like toys. Last summer we had an unrelenting heat wave and drought and a couple of years ago record snowstorms for an area that rarely gets more than a dusting of snow. We even had a few small earthquakes for an area that never had them before thanks to fracking, a process of extracting oil and natural gas from shale deep underground that involves pumping large amounts of liquid underground.