I’ve never lived through a major natural disaster before. I saw my share of Nor’easters growing up in New England, but nothing that cost us more than a few days worth of school (I grew up in Wethersfield, which made the process of listening for school closures on the radio agonizing – there’s nothing that breaks your spirit as a kid than sitting through ten minutes of “Avon…closed…Bridgeport…half day…Concord…closed…” to find out that your own town’s roads are perfectly clear and school will be starting right on time). Hurricane Bob barely touched us; we didn’t even lose power. The Northridge quake hit nine months before I came to California for college, and there hasn’t been a major one since I’ve been here. The storms in both Johannesburg and on the coast in South Africa were pretty dazzling (once I counted over a hundred visible lightning flashes in two minutes while looking out over the water) but aside from turning the water brown and making the waves unrideable (unless you were fucking crazy), the backwash from the cyclones hitting Madagascar was never more than some heavy rain and a stiff breeze.
I always thought it would be exciting to experience something like a tornado or a wildfire or something like that until I met a man who’d lived through Hurricane Ivan in Grenada. He told me about seeing the roof pulled off his house, and how he’d grabbed a bottle of rum and crawled into a cabinet. That sounds exciting, but it was clear from the expression on his face that it was pretty awful. He’d lost his boat and everything else and ended up saying “fuck it” and hitting the road. I met another guy who had been hit by lightning. Again, it was clear from his retelling that it was a pretty traumatic experience. It wasn’t an exciting experience. It didn’t give him magic powers. It’s just hurt a lot and sent him to the hospital.
So I realize that I’ve actually been incredibly lucky.
Last week a special guest from Battlebots dropped by for a visit and left the studio in shambles. All he left behind was this playlist.
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Go on….
I was 5 when Hurricane Bob hit. I was stuck on Cape Cod at my grandparents house. I don’t remember a whole lot about the storm itself, but I do remember filling every pot with water before the storm, playing in waist deep puddles on their road, and my mom and grandfather making lasagna on a gas grill because we didn’t have any power for 5 days after the storm.
Also my grandmother yelling at my aunt to vacuum the carpets before they lost power.
Grandma planning ahead!!!! Wooooo!!!
“When FEMA gets here I don’t want this place looking like a shithole!!!!”
One of the Hurricanes we got the hell out for was Hugo in ’89. I was in Myrtle Beach with GF at the time at her parent’s place. It was in an oceanfront park, trailer park more or less. The places there were houses/additions built onto trailers more or less, but not your typical single wide stuff. Anyway, we got the hell out and went inland to Conway, SC to ride it out.
Then went back the next day to assess damage, etc. Martial Law had been declared, Nat’l Guard all over the place. We had to prove we belonged there. Which went fairly smoothly, actually.
But when we saw the general damage, I was shocked. Ironically, her parents’ place was nearly untouched, but nearly everything around it had been swept back clean, probably about 300 yards, and was stacked up like matchsticks.
After seeing that, and in spite of her folks’ place needing only minor repairs, I’ll never mess with a storm surge.
I was in Arlington when the derecho hit, I guess that was the most destructive thing I’ve been around for. I was there for my dad’s retirement dinner. He ended up spending the first day of his retirement cutting up a tree that had fallen down.
Hurricane Gloria survivor here. Jersey shore. We were without power for 5 days. After just buying half a side of beef I actually fired up the grill and cooked during the hurricane. We had an outdoor redwood shower that screened the wind.
Also survived a tornado in the Quad Cities.
Survived, Northridge, Sylmar, Landers and Big Bear quakes. Earthquakes are easy.
Well, they get a lot easier after they stop shaking shit around.
“Don’t be a dick, Yeti.” -Greg Gibson seeing the invoice from KDFO.
I’ve ridden out some Hurricanes, some at the coast even. Well, near the coast…when those suckers turn inland to your south, that storm surge is nothing to screw around with so we got our asses out and moved inland for that stuff.
Closest I ever got to a seriously traumatic event for me personally was Hurricane Fran in ’96. Driving south on I-85, somewhere between Petersburg, Va and the VA/NC line, Fran decided to start throwing trees at me while I drove. Further along, several littered the highway. I had 4wd and was able to get around them (sometimes via the median) without too much difficulty, but I always imagined how bad it could have been if one had been timed slightly differently and hit me as I drove.