Ever experienced a natural disaster?

[We Are Legion]

Yesterday a series of tornadoes ripped through my home town of Dallas, Texas and my Facebook news feed kept me in-touch with the horrors of spring weather in North Texas.

I've never actually seen a tornado with my own eyes, but I've had a few close calls at my house where the walls would shake like being in a subway station. In fact, the place I was working at just before I moved to Montréal almost took a direct hit and my friend even captured it on his phone. I don't know if I'm jealous or glad I picked a great time to get the fuck out of there.

The video is better, but he uploaded it to Facebook, not Youtube. The debris falling in the yard was pretty insane.



So as far as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural phenomena are concerned, has anyone here experienced one?

 

[Heisenberg]

Nope, luckily in Australia we rarely (near to never) get natural disasters. We do get really bad floods sometimes though.

 

[We Are Legion]

I thought there was a fault line that cuts right through New Zealand? You guys don't get tsunamis or anything?

 

[Heisenberg]

Nope.. I don't recall any tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes or of that kind that's happened recently.

Australia is not subject to volcanic eruptions on the mainland. The only volcanoes on Australian territory are those on the remote Heard and MacDonald Islands. Whilst Australia could be hit by a major tsunami, it has not yet happened. It is conceivable that Australia could have avalanches, but this also is rarely an issue.

Australia does experience earthquakes, but not as severely or as commonly as in say Japan, Iran or New Zealand. Essentially, Australia is situated far from tectonic plate margins which are the "hotspots" for severe earthquakes. Stresses can develop away from plate margins, which is why the continent can experience relatively minor earthquakes.
Because Australia is centrally located on one of the shields of the earths crust. These are old solid parts of the earth's crust where there is no volcanic activity or movement so there is little in the way of seismic activity.

 

[We Are Legion]

Wow, thanks. That was seriously very informative and I wasn't aware of that.

 

[Aniking]

Wow, thanks. That was seriously very informative and I wasn't aware of that.

Neither was I, and I'm Aussie too.

I know that some coastal areas, mainly in Queensland, are subject to serious flooding, but HATRED summed it up pretty well. Possibly a little copy paste there? :STEEN:

 

[Dademo]

Hurricane Irene this past summer.. but it was barely a storm, and I wasn't outside, so I didn't really experience it.

 

[Slim]

We've had a hurricane go over before once. And in neighboring cities like right next to ours... and we had a couple like north of where I was living had some tornadoes that ripped through.

So yeah we had a little share of those kinda things.

 

[The Cork]

About 10 years ago there was an 'earthquake' around here, epicenter about a mile away.

I put earthquake into inverted commas because it measured something pathetic on the Richter Scale, but made national news. It was probably the equivalent of the bass being turned up in yr car, or someone jumping up and down next to you, put people were exaggerating to the press saying their beds flipped over etc etc.

 

[Sam]

Eh, we here in Scotland got a bit of a 'hurricane' earlier in the year, not like those you'd see in America or anything, but it was pretty wicked by our usual weather standards.

Unlucky for me, it was the day of my driving test, which got cancelled but I still had to drive about for 2 hours getting hit with branches and avoiding mini-lakes in the middle of the road, fallen down trees, bricks, the usual stuff.

So that's my experience.

 

[Chris]

The last time there were any major tornadoes here was when I was really young, so I don't remember. Other than tornadoes, no other natural disaster happens where I live (East Texas). The worst I can think of is when Hurricane Rita came through in 05, and we got the outskirts, electricity was out for a week, but no real damage.

 

[scottcs88]

I Experienced Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Wilma .

 

[We Are Legion]

^DAMN

 

[Vivido]

Last Feburary there was the Christchurch earthquake, at the time I lived about 200km south of Chch, we felt the earthquake in my home town but we were a pretty decent distance away from the epicenter, so not to much damage at home. What I did have to go through was the worry, as I have plenty of friends in Chch, plus it is a city that I know well and love.

In Janurary this year I moved to chch, which had experienced aftershocks for pretty much the rest of 2011, I've felt a few since my move but nothing to big. I feel pretty safe, but I now live in half a city.

I figured in the next 5-10 years Chch will be the place to be, everything will be new age fancy nancy buildings everywhere, so looking forward to that at least.

Pretty scary shit at times.

 

[scottcs88]

I forgot to mention, I also experienced Hurricane Katrina. South Florida sucks for hurricanes.