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Shake, Rattle, & Roll!

Sep 3rd 2007Suzanne Enoch
Suzanne EnochWhen Goddesses Fall To Earth

So I’m sitting on the couch Sunday morning, a chilled can of Diet Dr Pepper at my elbow and my computer with my revisions on my lap. And then it happens. First a small sideways shift, then a lift and a roll, followed by a thud. Yes, it’s an earthquake.

Having been born in Southern California, I’ve been through quite a few earthquakes. San Fernando in 1971, Whittier Narrows in 1987, and Northridge in 1994 were the largest of them for me, but there have been many, many more.

Like other residents, I stay where I am, waiting to see whether the shaking will stop or if it will get worse, becoming the dreaded “Big One”. As soon as it’s finished I call my mom, because no matter how small the quake she will immediately have started imagining me pinned and drowning beneath my 80 gallon aquarium, little fish flopping about on my face.

hurricane.jpgNow this may be because I haven’t been at the epicenter of a HUGE quake, but the earth shaking really doesn’t bother me. It can be inconvenient, yes, causing disrupted power and broken knick-knacks, but in a way it’s kind of…cool. Like however awesome the human race thinks it is, all the Earth has to do is hiccup and we hit the ground.

snow.jpgWhat does terrify me, though, is tornadoes. And hurricanes. And tsunamis. And really bad snow storms. Heck, with an earthquake you don’t have to worry about anything in advance and then you know pretty much right away if you’ve survived or not. Those other things, though, entail running away, hiding in basements, stocking up supplies, and otherwise waiting for an extended period while knowing that disaster is lurking. I’m not fond of lurking disaster.tsunami.jpg

Have you been through any big natural upheavals? What bothers you more – an earthquake or a whirling tornado of death? Has anyone found a place where none of that stuff happens? You know, a paradise?tornado.gif

50 Comments »

50 Responses to “Shake, Rattle, & Roll!”

  1. TheNightPoet on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:23 am #

    When I was a kid and we lived in Texas, Hurricane Alicia happened. I don’t remember much about it though. I remember we lost our electricity, but that’s about it. There have been a couple tornados to come through here where I live in Kansas, but luckily they didn’t cause us damage. I’m not sure which one bothers me more between earthquakes and tornadoes. I’d have to say that since I live in Kansas and we don’t have earthquakes (that I know of), tornadoes bother me more. I’m learning about all these natural disasters in one of my classes this semester. Tell you the truth, both of them bother me. They both can be disasterous. I haven’t found a paradise, except for the one in my mind. ;) If anyone knows of one, please share. :P

    Andrea

  2. lillipilli1978 on 03 Sep 2007 at 4:55 am #

    My house was one of the more than 500 that burned down in the Canberra fires of 2003. 250 of those were in my suburb alone, so you can imagine how horrifically the landscape had changed when we were finally allowed back to assess the damage
    These are photos of my street, the last four are taken from, or of, where my house used to be:
    http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/33382/20030304-0000/www.dvmg.com.au/canberrabushfires/gallery10.htm

  3. Judy F on 03 Sep 2007 at 7:15 am #

    We have tornados here in Ohio. Its terrifying when those sirens go off. I remember once going outside and the air felt so funny. Luckily it passed over where I lived but did a lot of damage to other areas.

  4. Stacy ~ on 03 Sep 2007 at 7:24 am #

    We had a tornado here in the Chicago ‘burbs a few weeks ago, but it didn’t do much damage - we did have to take cover at work, and the warning system in our building is just awful. The worst is not being able to see what’s going on. Where I grew up, in northern Minnesota, you could see all around our house and across the fields, and I know that’s crazy talk, but I felt safer being able to see the bad storms. In both places, never had significant damage. I admit to being fascinated by tornadoes, but not crazy enough to chase one.

  5. Karen Hawkins on 03 Sep 2007 at 7:58 am #

    Suzanne, please call me AFTER you call Mom. I worry, too and I can’t replace The World’s Greatest Conference Roomie so easily.

    I once lived in Tornado Alley above Atlanta and we had some good twisters. Spent many a night in the tub, covered with a blanket, hugging my kids as the ‘train’ got closer. Fortunately, we never sustained a direct hit. Then, the year before last, I was in FL when the three big hurricanes ripped through. Had a HUGE tree fall on the house in the first one, which was so horrifc that I decided tto finish my glass of wine cowering in the floor of a closet. Of course, then we went through two weeks without electricity — in 98 degree weather. It wasn’t pretty. Thank goodness we still had water!

    I used to live in East Tn and we’d get a little tremor now and then. Of them all, I think tornados scare me the most b/c you can’t outrun them. After that, I’d say earthquakes, and then last hurricanes. At least with a hurricane, you can opt to LEAVE!

  6. Lisa H on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:13 am #

    I live in Upstate NY and we are famous for our snow storms. One year, early March 1990, we had a terrible ice storm. Most of Rochester was without power for over 7 days in temperatures in the teens.

    My father bought a generator and hooked us up so we could have heat, and we nearly died from carbon dioxide poisoning! My mother woke up in the night and called the neighbors who dragged us out and called an ambulance.

    It was very scary, but we made it through. One thing I will never forget is how we all helped each other. We bailed water, and invited a neighbor with a baby to stay so the baby could have heat. We hooked up other houses to our generators so they could have heat at least for part of the day.

    If you ever need to use a generator, never put it in your garage, even with the door open, the fumes can be toxic.

  7. Lisa H on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:16 am #

    I don’t think paradise exists, we all have to deal with the forces of nature, unless you are wrapped up in Captain Jack Sparrow’s arms—there it’s pretty darn safe!

  8. doglady on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:31 am #

    Lisa H, that’s because Captain Jack IS a hurricane!!! I was in college when Camille came thru and being huddled in a dorm basement with 100 or so screaming girls is no fun!! When I was in high school I got off the school bus at home to the sound of tornado sirens. My brothers and I got home and were dragged into the downstairs bathroom where my mother had already put the dog, the cat AND the fish tank!! It was a bit crowded! The tornado ripped up our street, but skipped our house. It flattened several of our neighbors’ homes. We sat huddled in the dark screaming. It sounded like the biggest train you have ever heard. The only calm ones were the fish! Tornadoes a are a fact of life in Alabama. You NEVER, however, get used to them. The only advantage we have is that if you live here long enough you can walk out into your yard, look at the sky and feel the air and you KNOW one is coming. My neighbors’ cows are the best predictors if they run for the barn, it’s time to run for cover.

  9. doglady on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:37 am #

    Even better is my Hurricane Katrina rescue dog, Boudreaux. He is a Basset Hound mix who was found in a house in St. Bernard Parrish after nearly three months! He stayed because his dead owner was there. He was a pitiful sight when a vet tech friend of mine, who had gone down to help with animal rescue, brought him home to me. At first he would run and hide at the first hint of a storm. Now, it is only if a really bad one is coming that he runs around barking and howling. When he crawls under the bed, you know you had better do the same!! My biggest fear? Fire. It has been so dry here lately, that any fire can become a disaster. I had to call the fire department this summer because of a fire in my back yard (about 5 acres.) They were really great, but I had loaded all of the dogs and cats in the car, just in case. Now THAT is an unpredictable disaster and the worst part is you can watch it coming for you.

  10. Lisa H on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:41 am #

    doglady—it sounds so scary. I can’t imagine how people can endure it!!!

    There is an old Jewish proverb that says, “If everyone hung all their troubles on a line, we would always choose back our own”

    I guess I’d rather weather the snow storms than go through a tornado.

    And the only hurricane I could handle is… ahem… the aforementioned Captain Jack, blow your mind hurricane!

  11. FreshEChelle on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:53 am #

    Where I live we get snow storms and hurricanes but fortunately they aren’t the lethal kind (but rain that shuts down the NYC subway makes me mad enough to want to kill). I’ve been trapped in the house for three days with 30″ of snow while I was cat sitting for my parents 8 rescue cats but it was a cakewalk compared to what others face in other parts of the world. I learned about catastrophe after visiting Grand Forks, ND a year after their 500 year flood in ‘97. It was unfathomable to see an entire neighbor deserted, houses shifted off their foundation, people’s lifetimes abandoned for the sake of survival.

    I think Paradise exists I just have to get there. To me Paradise is regular visits to the Neiman Marcus shoe department with someone else paying the bill, preferrably someone who is worthy of FRO Sunday…mmmm.

  12. Keri Ford on 03 Sep 2007 at 9:21 am #

    I’m in south Arkansas, so I’m too far in for hurricanes. Tornados come NEAR me, but I live in an industrialized area with several tall smoke stacks. According to my grandma, those stacks let off heat, and the tornados can’t go through them, only around. The worst we get is an occasional ice storm. I remember maybe 10-12 years back, one hit really bad and we had no electricity for seven days. Other than that, the summer temp in the 100s with high humidty can be tough. We have to watch out for heat strokes cause the air conditoners just can’t keep up.

  13. Dot C on 03 Sep 2007 at 9:43 am #

    I live in Maine, so snow and I are best friends. Thankfully, we will get a few waterspouts, and there are rumors about an occasional twister setting down, but the Appalachians and foothills disrupt most tornado activity. We get remnants of hurricanes, and we did get pelted by Bob one year, but it wasn’t so bad. Our Ice storm was horrible one year. Electricity was out for over 2 weeks in many spots, and today, after more than a decade, you can still see the tree damage from the storm. Snow is no big deal to me. For the last two years running, in Feb. & March, we had 3 ft storms every two or 3 days. The drifting is a pain, but I know that the difference is that our state has the equipment to deal with ginormous quantities of snow. States like (southern)NY, PA, and others put snowplows on their garbage trucks. That shit doesn’t work up here. Our snowplows look like army tanks or field graders. And sometimes it’s fun to take a day and play in the snow!

  14. Bumblebee on 03 Sep 2007 at 10:03 am #

    Suzanne, that’s amazing that you can sit through those quakes with such aplomb! I was a grad student at UCLA in 1994, and was questioning whether or not to continue, or to transfer into a new field. Then, like a sign from Fate, the earthquake, the fires, the mudslides, and O.J. convinced me that I was truly an east coast gal at heart, and that “I think I’ll go to Boston” as the overplayed song says. A few blizzards are just plain refreshing in comparison!

    Nothing like crisp, fresh snow, and my husband the teacher dancing around chanting “Snow Day, Snow Day!” to make me laugh and appreciate being trapped indoors for a day or two!

    -Emmiebee

  15. MizMacgyver on 03 Sep 2007 at 10:08 am #

    In West Virginia my biggest fear is water, I now live on top of one of the hills so that doesn’t worry me so much as when I lived on the river. All of my life there has been threats of tornadoes but I have never been involved in one, not even close. I have heard that our mountains work as a barrier.

  16. dbrown3400 on 03 Sep 2007 at 10:18 am #

    I’ve been in two tornado ‘direct hits’, one in Oklahoma and one in New Jersey, although the one in Jersey only damaged our property. I almost was hit by a huge oak that came through our window in Tulsa. I’ve seen several from a distance, both in Oklahoma, and once in Indiana or Illinois when the girls and I were on a road trip. Growing up in the tornado belt I kinda know what to do but I’m petrified of fire.

    > > > My house was one of the more than 500 that burned down in the Canberra fires of 2003.

    Hearing that, lilli, and the fires they have in the Western US and in Pinelands in NJ really scare me. I don’t know why but I’ve been so afraid of fire that it probably kept me from ever smoking because I’m afraid to strike matches. I can, but I don’t like it.

    We had severe rain storms with sideways rain and rain so hard you couln’t see in front of you that starts so suddenly and stops just as quickly. When you are driving, that is scary.

  17. dbrown3400 on 03 Sep 2007 at 10:21 am #

    I could never live in Buffalo, but I don’t mind snow. I can drive in it but hate being on the road with others who can’t. My daughter in Miami has been in several hurricanes but I still talk to her several hours on the phone each week. Thank goodness, she hasn’t had a problem with one so far.

    My idea of paradise has always been Tahiti. I don’t know why I say that. I’ve never been there, know nothing about it and it’s far away. Oh, well.

  18. Suzanne Enoch on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:02 am #

    I kid you not, we just had another tremor about 20 minutes ago. My sis called and said my nephew came down the stairs to report that “something fell off the wall but it’s okay, because daddy caught it”. What it was, she had no idea.

    Lillipilli, those fire photos are awful! There are about 30 fires burning in Southern California right now, but I’m so suburban that it’s not much of a danger for me personally. I did have to call the fire department last week when my neighbor’s smoke alarm went off — they’d left a pot on the stove and it caught fire.

    Tornadoes give me the shivers. Yikes.

  19. darkshire007 on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:15 am #

    While living in Fairbanks we had a 6.9 earthquake that didn’t even make the news. We were downtown when it hit and the cars in the parking lot starting sliding on the ice. Not wanting one to slide into us we just stayed inside the store and watched it happen. Earthquakes happen so often in Alaska that it’s just a way of life. I believe they happen every 10 minutes or something crazy like that (there is a web site at the university that gives better stats). I have been through a wildfire in southern Utah; scary, the temperature in the car had to be pushing 100 degrees because of the flames along the road. Grew up in Pasadena (TX) and went through a few hurricanes and numerous tornados and floods. A blizzard is the only natural disaster I haven’t encountered yet. Notice the word “yet”. The wind storms that happened in Seattle (I think that was right before Christmas last year) scared me the most. These were hurricane strength winds that tore everything down and threw it around.

  20. darkshire007 on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:16 am #

    We were without power for a while. Some were without power, water or phone for weeks. Generators, water, wood and batteries were non-existant in the stores.

  21. Karen Rose on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:18 am #

    Wow - I’ve been so lucky! Listening to you all has made me count my blessings. I like that Jewish proverb, LisaH.

    I live in FL on the Gulf coast. The scariest year was 2004. Hurricane Charlie was projected to blow right through my neighborhood. At the last minute it took a sharp right and blew through Punta Gorda. Those poor people! Within weeks, we were battoning down the hatches again for Frances, and a few weeks later for Jeanne.

    But as for opting to leave, not so simple. Especially if you’re not sure where to go. In 2004, Ivan was the third big one to come through. Original projections had it headed, again, straight for our neighborhood. I and several of my teacher friends were thinking “Three strikes and you’re out.” My DH, logical statistical, infuriating man that he is, says, “Statistically it makes no difference whether it’s two, three or thirty-three. We’re staying home.”

    Cont…

  22. Karen Rose on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:22 am #

    So many of my teacher friends drove north, braving long lines at the pump and outrageously spiked hotel costs. And Ivan hit up at the Panhandle area, so even though they ran, they couldn’t hide!

    Once we were at Disney World when Floyd came through. Disney shut down for a whole day - the first time in 30 years it had done so. Fascinating. But to bring up Lisa H’s proverb again…

    The next day WDW reopened and were were having dinner at MGM. We started chatting with the family next to us and they said they were from NJ and their house was underwater, courtesy of Floyd. They said they might as well stay at WDW and have fun, because they couldn’t get close to their home in Jersey anyway. And this was a special trip. Their little boy had been battling cancer and this was the trip to celebrate his coming off chemo.

    It put the world back into perspective for me.

  23. Karen Rose on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:31 am #

    FYI, I was researching hurricanes yesterday when I noticed Felix had become a Cat 5. I was taking a writing break after writing 10 difficult pages. That is true! I wasn’t procrastinating - that time. Now… Okay, now I’m procrastinating.

    Anyway, did you know the worst hurricane in history occured in 1780? More that 22,000 (THOUSAND) people died. Unbelievable.

    And that hurricane played a pivotal, but rarely mentioned role in American history. A good number of the British fleet was destroyed, giving the Americans an edge during the Rev. War.

    Okay, I’m shoving the teacher in me back down and calling the writer to come back out. Gotta write some more pages today!

  24. Suzanne Enoch on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:07 pm #

    KarenR, you are just a font of interesting information. *g*

    You people who just dance around singing “snow day” amaze me. I was 12 years old before I even saw snow up close, and that was because we drove up to Big Bear.

  25. Karen Rose on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:32 pm #

    Snow days are for children not yet old enough to be nagged by parents to SHOVEL THE BLINKIN’ DRIVEWAY.

    Or by enterprising youths out to make a buck by shoveling driveways. I never met any enterprising youths, however.

    We did have some amazing snow days when I was in college. It was winter ‘83 and we missed three days of class because it snowed 3 feet in one night. Nobody was shoveling anything - it was just too much.

    Suzie, you can call me Cliff Claven. On second thought, please don’t!

  26. ladydawgfan on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:44 pm #

    I have been through two tornadoes (no damage personally, but lots around me), and I was in Mississippi when Ivan the Terrible came through in 2004. Growing up in Chi-town superboonies gave me a sense of inevitability RE tornadoes - eventually I would be in one, regardless of where I was. Know what? That sense was right on. The first tornado was in Aurora, Il. The second was in Starkville, Ms. And just about 2 wks ago, another hit here in VT about 15 miles from where I sit. Nutso!!!

    BTW, nothing is scarier than actually waking to the sound of tornado sirens going off. That happened to me in Jackson in 2004. ‘Bout had a heart attack!!!

  27. Sabrina Jeffries on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:49 pm #

    Weather doesn’t scare me, but it should. :-)

    I managed to live in a hurricane-prone area for 17 years (New Orleans), and then move to a hurricane-possible area ten years ago. We’re in central North Carolina, which DOES get hurricanes (we were without power for 8 hours with Floyd), but not to the same degree that the coast gets them or that New Orleans got them.

    When we lived in New Orleans, we ALWAYS evacuated for any hurricane above a 2. That’s because my husband lived through Betsy as a child, and he wasn’t ABOUT to go through that again. But plenty of his friends used to laugh at us when we evacuated. How things change. :-(

    Watching Katrina nearly killed me. I knew that my best friend had stayed to ride it out, and we couldn’t reach her for a few days (she was fine). But I kept thinking how hard it would have been for us if we’d still been living there with our son. We couldn’t have survived weeks without school or care.

  28. ladydawgfan on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:50 pm #

    RE earthquakes:

    Back in 1993, there was an earthquake in Quebec that we felt here in northern VT. It happened in November in the middle of the night, and I remember it clearly only because it woke me out of a sound sleep. My bedroom is on the second floor and my entire bed was shaking. For some strange reason, the entire event reminded me of that “I Love Lucy” episode where they are all on vacation and they are staying at that dive motel. Everytime the train goes by on the nearby tracks, the bed travels across the room!!

    That night, I half expected to turn on the light and find myself out in the hallway!! The worst part about it?? My parents, whose BR is on the first floor, didn’t feel a thing and slept right through it!!

  29. FreshEChelle on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:52 pm #

    Lisa H speaking of Jewish saying, I’m fearing a kanaharah (sp?) on all of us who say I’ve never experienced “insert natural phenomenon here”. Are we bringing snow storms to Southern Cal and FL by talking about this? Hurricanes to the central plains? Tornados to the northwest?

    Karen R - sadly, I too refer to myself as Cliff Claven. We’ve gotta stop sharing useless trivia that just assures that one day we may win a mint on Jeopardy. Did you know the foot on the opening credits of My Three Sons taps 36 times? Trivia Rulz!

  30. FreshEChelle on 03 Sep 2007 at 12:56 pm #

    Ladydawg - I too felt a Quebec quake, in 2002. I was in a Montreal hotel and when I first woke I thought there was a subway line under the hotel. The coolest part was the quake was just a few hours after seeing my first aurora borealis on the drive to MT. It was so cool to experience these two things so close together. I didn’t expect a quake in Quebec so I was buzzed about it. Glad that the northerneast quakes are rare and mild for your sake. So weird that your parents didn’t feel a thing. Stay safe!

  31. twolilhahas on 03 Sep 2007 at 2:29 pm #

    Karen Rose, you were telling my story when you were talking about all those hurricanes. We seem to be in a very good area of Florida because every time those hurricanes were projected to come straight over us, they turned and went somewhere else! We must live fairly close to one another! lol

  32. twolilhahas on 03 Sep 2007 at 2:30 pm #

    I’ve never seen real snow. It snowed in Florida once, but I don’t really count that as real snow. It was more mush than anything.

    Never been through an earthquake, either. I’d have a heart attack for sure.

    We’ve had a few tornadoes slip through our town, but never near us. Thank God for that!

  33. Karen Rose on 03 Sep 2007 at 2:57 pm #

    Fresh, LOL. One man’s useless trivia is another man’s bread and butter - espcially when that man is my DH, a high school history teacher. I’m thinking “interesting” factoids about how we managed to win vs. the Brits in the Rev War is important somehow! Please?

    Okay, if the foot taps 36 times on My 3 Sons, how many times do the Addams family snap in that intro? (Insert Jeopardy theme)

    We had lots of tornadoes when I lived in Cincinnati. Judy F - we’re probably talking about the same ones. I had to chuckle at Doglady’s story about her family’s menagerie crowding the downstairs bathroom - that happened to us every time the tornado sirens stormed. The one that was the worst was in June, 1990 - my daughter was two weeks old and the sirens went off. DH and I crowded into this tiny powder room with the baby and three big dogs. Houses a half mile from us had the aluminum siding peeled off like potato skins. Scary.

    FL gets a lot of tornados - they come with the hurricanes.

  34. Karen Rose on 03 Sep 2007 at 3:05 pm #

    Two, snow’s not all that great. I’d take our FL sunshine any day of the week! (Because snow is cold. Yuck.)

    I’ve never been through an earthquake, either, but I did travel several times to Kobe, Japan after their huge earthquake in the 90’s. That cured me from ever wanting to experience one.

    I’ll just live vicariously through you, Suzanne! Of all the weather, earthquakes seem the scariest to me.

  35. AnnaSwede on 03 Sep 2007 at 3:25 pm #

    We’re usually pretty much spared from the big natural forces in Sweden. No earthquakes or big hurricanes. Some smaller storms of course. We had a pretty big snow storm in 1995 and a January storm (no snow) a couple of years ago that felled lots of trees. There’s been some flooding as well, but these things are usually never as big as what we read about in other parts of the world. As long as you stay inside in really bad weather you’re safe. It’s pretty much paradise for me. ;)

  36. Ladytink_534 on 03 Sep 2007 at 3:26 pm #

    I live on the Southern Gulf Coast and after 6 months of living here, I was in Hurrican Katrina (far enough away so we didn’t have too much damage but close enough to have 80 mph winds shake the house) which was kind of frightening but it was worse for the week afterwards in which we didn’t have any power. People are just so used to being able to flick on a switch and cook, or take a bath, go to the store, or do laundry… not so that week! We had to head to Mobile, Alabama just to be able to get groceries! All the hotels were reserved for Katrina victims (even though over half weren’t in use and had no plans to be) so we couldn’t stay.

    I do have to say though, the idea of being in an earthquake scares me senseless so I hope that’s one thing I’ll never have to go through.

  37. Suzanne Enoch on 03 Sep 2007 at 3:40 pm #

    I looked up the quake from this morning on the USGS site. It was only a 3.2, but centered about 5 miles from my house — which was why it felt pretty strong. Anything under a 5.0 is hardly worth worrying about. *g* I still had to call my mom again, though.

  38. Kay on 03 Sep 2007 at 4:21 pm #

    I lived in Fl for three years. While I was there, we were spared a hit from Hugo, and we left one week before Andrew hit. I’ll shovel my weather, thank you. LOL

    We do get tornadoes in MN, but in the 15 yrs we’ve been here, we have missed them. :-)

  39. Nicole Jordan on 03 Sep 2007 at 4:36 pm #

    Yikes, Suzanne! All of y’all’s experiences sound horrifying. My sis lives in L.A. (Glendale) and went through Northridge, and I have friends who went through Katriana and Punta Gorda. But thankfully, I’ve never been faced with anything like that, even though I’ve live in San Francisco and Missouri right on top of the New Madrid fault in tornado territory.

    The worst I’ve ever endured is ice storms in Atlanta. The whole city shuts down if there’s a snowflake on the highway.

    Oh, and we had a bad fire 1/2 mile from our house a few years ago and had to evacuate. But they put it out in time for us to come back that night.

    Hugs to you all, and stay safe. And yes, do call your mom, Suzanne. Relatives can go through difficult moments, too, imagining the worst.

    NicoleJ

  40. Suzanne Enoch on 03 Sep 2007 at 6:55 pm #

    I forgot to mention thunder storms. They’re actually very rare in Southern California. When the RWA (Romance Writers’ conference) was in DC we had severe thunderstorms, and there was lightning when we were in Dallas (both times), and I suppose it’s rare enough for me that I’m just fascinated. We’re having them right now because of the extreme heat (the thermostat on my patio says 115), but they’re about another 10 miles inland from where I live.

    Do you have lightning? And how do you feel about it?

  41. Keri Ford on 03 Sep 2007 at 7:33 pm #

    Nicole, I’ve been sitting here trying to remember the name of that fault line! I did a paper on New Madrid in college. Can’t remember the year of the earthquake (18 something, I think), but I do remember something about it rang the church bells all the way in Philly? or coulda been Virgina off the tremors of that one orginating out of the Missouri/Arkansas/Tennesse area! It’s been several years, but I read several excerpts from people’s diarys about they went to sleep with a vast forest in their backyard and woke up to nothing but ponds and lakes for as far as they could see. Many said the tremors was causing the earth to open and water shot out like a gyser, huge oak trees were sucked in the earth. I image in that time of day, they probably thought the gates of hell were opening up. Those tremors went on for months and months.

  42. Marie Conley on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:22 pm #

    I live in Oklahoma, heart of tornado alley, and I hate thunder. What this makes is for is a twenty year old “woman” sneaking under the covers every spring at two a.m. May 3rd tornado, I was in 6th grade. When the sirens began going off it was around five o’clock. I had just gotten out of volleyball practice, and I had to get me and my sister to my grandmother’s. Our safe place. She lived a block away. So we are running through a ditch that is filling with rain on our way to our grandmother’s house. I am running as hard as my short and FAT little legs will take me all the while the sirens are blaring overhead. We wait in the pouring rain for my grandma to open her door. When she finally answers she shoves us into a small shower. Now let me tell you a little something. Me and my sisters combined weights would have equaled 300 pounds all in our butts. The sirens blared until 9 p.m. The next morning I entered my math room to find that my math teacher still expected the 10 page homework.

  43. Judy F on 03 Sep 2007 at 8:33 pm #

    Yup Karen those are the ones. I still remember when I moved into my first apt back in 1990 and the sirens were going off. I kept worrying if I was covered since I had just gotten apt ins. The one I remember mostly was back in 1974 I think that is the year when Sayler park (just outside of Cinti) was leveled. Very scary. I have seen a funnel in the distant and that is as close as I ever care to get.

    We had a very mini earthquake in Cinti once. It was a what the heck was that moment. Nothing like they have out in Calif. Hope you all are staying cool.

  44. Nicole Jordan on 03 Sep 2007 at 9:43 pm #

    Keri, very interesting that you did a paper on that early 1800’s earthquake. Supposedly it was the worst in US history and had the Mississippi running backwards for a week!

    Marie, my mom lives in OK City, and a few years ago, her roofer’s warehouse got demolished a short way across town, but her new roof was unscathed.

    And I lived in Cinci for nearly 3 years in the early/mid-’80’s and never saw a single tornado. Go figure.

    As for lightening, a good friend in Atlanta had her house zapped last year, which fried her computer, but thankfully she was fine. But I just bought an external hard drive just in case.

  45. zambonigirl on 03 Sep 2007 at 11:04 pm #

    I was about 20 miles away from the 6.7 earthquake that happened in Palm Springs about, oh, seven (?) years ago. It was very frightening. I was laying in a bed in a strange house directly underneath a very large picture window. We had found some black widows hanging around the house, so I was afraid to get out of bed (spiders>earthquakes), so I managed to turn on my stomach somehow (the bed was shaking like you wouldn’t believe, I doubt I would have been able to walk anywhere anyway), and cover my head with a pillow just in case the picture window should shatter.

    I never got any sleep that night. Aftershocks continued for the rest of the night and well into the next day. We found out that a huge crack on an airstrip resulted from the quake, and counted ourselves lucky.

    Also, we called an exterminator for the black widows.

  46. Krissy on 04 Sep 2007 at 7:46 am #

    I totally agree with you. I grew up in So CAl and remember both the Whittier and Northridge quakes, and so many others. The Northridge quake was the 1st quake I experienced with my new husband from TX. Me: the earth shook and I woke up and then rolled back over to go back to bed. My ex-DH: Rolled out of bed, OMG we’re going to die. I have to turn the tv on to find out what that was, blah blah blah. I now live in Tornado Alley and complain all the time that I’d take an earthquake over a tornado anytime. Of course, MO actually has the New Madrid fault that made the river run backwords, so technically I could get and earthquake anytime out here.

  47. MJ on 04 Sep 2007 at 7:46 pm #

    Goodness but you ladies are BRAVE. I can’t even handle high winds.

    Of course that may be due to the time most of my roof blew off during a windstorm…. or the time a tree came through our cottage window and landed on the recliner I usually inhabited for the entire weekend (reading mysteries - this was before my enlightenment -and I, thankfully, had drunk too many Diet Cokes and had run out of Nacho Cheese Doritos, so was on a rare break).

    Now - I might feel differently had the erstwhile HH been around for either of those episodes (OK- let’s not kid ourselves - I would have been in charge of crisis control anyway). I REALLY don’t like that “Oh Shoot - what’ll I do now” sinking feeling while I try to figure out what I’ve got that’ll keep the rain out at least for the night….

    Seriously - unsettled, stormy weather has a really bad effect on my fibro and usually results in a sleepless night. Guess I’ll remain a coward. But I do admire folks with more fortitude….

  48. TheNightPoet on 05 Sep 2007 at 11:40 pm #

    As a kid I used to be scared of thunderstorms. I would get so scared that I would shake with fear and worry about what was going to happen. I would even try to gather up everything that I wanted to “save”. My dad got me over that. He used to tell me it was nothing but a little rain and that it was okay. (He was the one in the family alway standing outstide watching the storms roll through town. His family and him used to do that all the time.) I think after watching him do that all the time and not get hurt, that’s what got me over my fear of thunderstorms. I now am like my dad in that I go outside and watch the storms and all their wonder. If it’s lightening really bad though, I don’t go outside, but I will watch from inside the house at the door. I like falling asleep to thunderstorms now.

    Andrea

  49. TheNightPoet on 05 Sep 2007 at 11:47 pm #

    Someone mentioned snow storms earlier and it reminded me of one we had when I was a sophomore in high school in 1997. This storm had ice and heavy snow in October, which is not really common for Kansas in October, at least not where I live. Anyway, when I got home from school that day, we had no electricity and it was cold! I stayed in my coat all until my mom came and picked up my brother and I. We ended up staying at my grandparents house that night, because they still had electricity.

    We got a couple of snow days out of that storm and I loved it. I’m like Bumblebee’s husband singing “Snow day, snow day!” lol When you live in an area where you get snow, you hope you can get a snow day that year so then you can stay at home and play in the snow! Even now when the weather gets bad in the winter time, I hope that classes are cancelled and that there is a snow day. haha I’m so bad. lol

    Andrea

  50. TinaLouiseF on 06 Sep 2007 at 10:22 pm #

    I live in Kalispell, MT. The last good blizzard was in 1997. So far tornados have not been successful in forming. Way too far from a coast for a hurricane. As far as I remember, the earthquakes are below 2.0. The last flooding was in 1999, I think. Huge wildfires in 2001, 2003 and 2007. What am I missing?