Up Close and Personal...

I have never been up close and personal to things like that until after it happened. It amazes me and saddens me all at the same time what happens, but I want to see the outcome of it also.

I have sat through two major hurricanes, Alicia in 83 and Ike last year.

We had a tornado go through here a couple summers ago, thankfully we weren't right in the middle of it but we did get the effect from it. We were camping next to my daughter, her husband and two kids (They had a trailer). The kids were playing and the wind suddenly came up. The kids came running into our old motorhome and looking pretty worried. All we had was a small old motorhome and there was my husband trying to hold down the awning. The motorhome was rocking pretty hard and my grandchildren on top of me. One of them said, Grandma we're not going to die are we? I told them no but we needed to pray asking that this terrible wind should stop. I held the kids close and never prayed so hard in my life. There were many trailers damaged, awnings torn and trailers damaged. We had no damage but I'll always remember the fear.

When I was 17 a bad tornado went through our town & stopped a block away. I remember I woke up because it sounded like we were getting hit & by morning our subdivision exits were completely blocked from debris

We have had some record hail storms, nearby tornados, and even a flood in our town but never have any of them scared me as bad as back in the mid 80's when we had a earthquake. I was in my living room and the standing lamp at one end of the couch moved and proceded to almost fall over. I got up, freaked, and went to the door way into the kitchen. My plants on the divider were whirling and going all over the place. What a mess! It was over in just afew seconds.

I can't remember exactly when hurricane Bob came ashore in Gulfport Mississippi but at the time my husband and I was living in our car on the beach. As the storm got worse transformers started blowing on the light poles and we got really scarred. So we left the car which was broke down and ran two blocks through the storm to the truck stop that was by some miracle still open. We sat there for the rest of the night drinking coffee. The next morning when we went back to the car we noticed that it was parked closer to the ocean than we left it and a barge was sitting on the beach right behind it. So, that is my close call with nature.

The closest I've been to a natural disaster were earthquakes. Nothing too big, but with living in the Bay Area when I was growing up I guess I was bound to be in at least one. As they were earthquakes I wasn't able to watch from a safe distance...I was right in the middle of it! The biggest one that I've ever felt was when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, but it was still small enough that it didn't do too much damage. I also felt the San Francisco quake of '89. Fortunately I was about 100 miles away from it, so I was able to keep a safe distance. Shortly after it happened I was able to see some of the damage up close and personal. Seeing it like that made it that much more real to me and gave me an eerie feeling. It makes me glad that I don't live so close to them anymore, though at the same time I know that they can happen just about anywhere. Happy mylotting!

hi twoey68 The closest I ever come to a natural disaster was the northridge ca quake a number of years back. where we were it was only about a 4 which struck early in the morning sitting off car alarms and shutting down the electicity all over Tustin, it seemed to shake hard off and on for a whole minute.the epicenter was in Northridge where houses collapsed and the freeway gave way with cars on it, they were trapped for hours and only a few survived that from the freeway. it rocked us pretty hard but only books knocked off shelves in Tustin were the only causalities. at the epicenter it w as horrfic with major damage, some hospitals just went over on their sides like dominoes. truly a major disaster. we have not had another bad one like that, so every time I feel a minor tremor I am bracing for the big one again.

I don't recall me personally ever opening the door to look at a tornado, but I think my grandmother has and I've stood behind her whilst she was admiring it. We used to gather in her den on Friday nights if a tornado happened to strike then, or even if it wasn't a friday. They have two windows in the den that are side by side and look out at the street. A tree blocks it most of the year except in the fall. There was one year I recall a tornado occurring, I believe my grandfather came to pick me up from my mother's, and my aunt and her family was already there. I believe it was when she was remodeling her home and there were some open parts of the house. In any case, now we go to my husband's mom's closet and sit in it! No storm gazing for us!

Tornadoes is one of the scarriest thngs. Yet awesome. An act of Jahovah. I have always been fascinated by them and wish to take pics of them. From a safe distance of coarse. But yet they are scarry. I too appreciate the storm chasers.

gLAD Y'ALL DIDN'T HAVE ANY MORE DAMAGE THAN U DID. u WERE VERY BLESSED NOT TO. tORNADOES HAVE HIT VERY CLOSE TO ME NUMEROUS TIMES BUT THANK GOD never right on me. I have never been in any kind of bad diaster.

There have been several hurricanes and tropical storms that have come through my part of Florida since I've been here and we chose to stay each time, usually at home but with one, the entire family took shelter inside of the concrete building where my brother-in-law's business is. During every storm I've been through I've watched through windows or doors on the side opposite the wind. During one hurricane I was watching when the wind picked up part of the roof of an old, empty single wide mobile home and then saw it literally explode from the center. When I was still in Maryland a tornado went down the street behind our house but we didn't see it. My neighbor saw it coming and called screaming for us to get downstairs to the basement so I was too busy rounding up the kids and racing down the stairs to watch it. I saw the aftermath though, which stretched for blocks. We lost a big tree which, fortunately, didn't land on anything when it fell.

I have been though the rements of a Hurrican once. In sep 2008 hurcaine gustav went thurgh New Orlenes with some maijor damage. not quite as bad as kinitrina. My security company sent me and 4 other employes as a part of a disaster relilf team and we assited in the aftermath. we left town on the same day it it. It was about an 8 hour drive from my home to New Orleines. by the time we got there the storm was still passing thur. The cops blocked the briges and we had to wait. we waited for a few hours. then we found out that there was bridge we cross to get to the city on another rotue. we went there only to discover that that bridge was blocked and we had to wait. then we got the all clear singal and we crossed the bridge in the middle of the storm with a police escort. most of the storm had past but some of it still remimed. we drove thur heavy winds and rain but got to our hotel safely. the whole experence remiemed me of something out of an action-adveture movie. I said to myself, where is Michel Bay or Jamas Carmoron lol.

Well, let's see... there was hurricane Katrina which left 80% of my city under water and then there was the tornado that ripped through my neighborhood the year afterward...

Well HUbby anbd I drove thru 2 tornados tring to get back home where my daughter went thru one very personal for her for it took our mobile home tossed it over a 100 foot tree and then the tree landed over her and my grand son who was staying with her if it hadnt of been for the thick tree limbs the tree would have smashed them both! Is That close enough for ya.?

That's easy -Hurricane Ike blew right through the Houston area. Though we did not suffer any major damage we were without power for 9 days and trees and limbs were everywhere. Others in the area had it much worse. But I would rather not have to go through that again.

um..never a natural disaster..but an unnatural one. i was one electric bill away from going to the great white "station" show-the fire that killed 100 people.if they hadn't been threating to turn off our power,my bro and i both would have been at it.i decided instead to pay the bill.

I was in a truck when a tornado set down about a half a mile from me. It was awesome,I heard the noise that sounded like a train and the wind and hail and rain. It hit some houses and did not touch others. It is steel hard to believe. I turned into a bank parking lot, are I would have run into its path. Have a great day.

Storm chasers are nuts, but they do a very important job, just like any specialist who works with natural disasters. Mother Nature can be beautiful but she can also be cruel, which I think is just the same as humans, so we get what we give. Droughts are probably the worst natural disaster I have encountered, although, bushfires are around too. thankfully, the drought has been declared broken where we are, though other parts of Australia are still at the peak of their droughts, and it could be years, if ever, before theirs breaks.

I didn't have much choice with the Northridge earthquake. Or the Sylmar quake... In September 1999, I was back east with my sister and we experienced the tail end of Hurricane Floyd. Torrential rain all the way from Gettysburg to Philadelphia. Fun. NOT...