Tornado.......ever been in one? Are you afraid of storms?

Hi........part of Ohio had some strong storms and tornado warnings last night. Luckily, we weren't in any of it. Have any of you ever experienced a tornado?
If so, I'd love to hear about it and the part of the world you live in.

As for storms, I love a good storm, but of course don't want any serious damage and of course for no one to get hurt...........

Yeah, I have, and 3 hurricanes. And I'm terrified of storms.

We were hit on Nov. 10 2002 lost a 100+ year old oak tree, 2
storage buildings, one was the wellhouse. there is still
debris in the woods in front and in back of the house.
We live in North Western Alabama I am not scared of storms
but I do respect them.
Untill you go through one you have no idea even though
we did not lose our home it had some damage.

Turtlecat, was there any damage from your tornadoes?

Color me and my kitties perfectly paranoid about storms! A tornado passed between us and our nearest neighbor in Nov. of 2002, now when its storms, we all get a little nervous......which reminds me, Hissy if you read this, will you tell me if you thing Rescue Remedy would help my kitties with this? I think their mommy needs something stronger, lol!

Nebraska is right in Tornado Alley, so I get my fair share of them. I'm terrified of them, but I have had to learn the hard way how to stay calm during them. Here's a thread that I started about a month ago or so. http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...mart+tornadoes

Since this thread, I have had another close encounter which we had lost power while I was at work. It was definitely scary, but luckily we didnt get hit. I would love to spend just one summer tornado free!

I've been through three. Once I was driving to Dallas from Austin, on I35, and in a small town, Hillsboro, there was one only a few miles west of me! That was very scary because at the time, you couldnt see anything! It was dark green everywhere and SOLID rain and hail you couldnt see past. I was petrified b/c you could tell it was somewhere close, but couldnt tell where.

My first one was in 1997, when I was a college freshman. It was orientation weekend and I had a VERY important French Clep test to take, and I didn't know there were tornadoes around. I set out on foot to go to the test, and BOOM! The storm hit in a blink of an eye, and everything went green and rain was fat and sideways. It was funny looking back on it, because I was SPRINTING with all my might, and the wind was against the direction I was going, and I was getting nowhere. That ended up being a very big, dangerous tornado that killed numerous people in a small town north of Austin, called Jarrell. I have actually seen documentaries about that one, and I think how stupid I was to be out in it.

Another one trapped me on campus overnight. They closed all the transportation taking you off campus, which was fine, because there were two tornadoes reported to be at my exact address! So I stayed there all night wondering if my apartment still existed. Sure enough, once I got home, you could see where it had been- large trees completely uprooted and snapped, the entire mail center GONE, things on my porch that did not belong to me. It was surreal.

I have been in three, but have never actually SEEN a funnel in the distance, like you see on TV. All of them I've been in, you cant see anything past rain. And they always seem to be at night here. I think if I ever saw one of those big, black, wide ones they show on Tv I would PASS OUT.

Brienne, all I can say about that is WOOOOOOOWWWWWWW

Living in Canada we don't experience tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. We have a bit of snow and a bit of cold in the winter and the summers are beautiful. That about sums it up.

I would be terrified I'm sure if we had that kind of weather!

By far the freakiest thing I have ever seen is a flood. When I lived in San Antonio/New Braunfels area of Texas, there was this rain system that kept getting caught in the middle of wind patterns. to where the same system just rotated in circles around San Antonio for days. Nothing would knock it out, and the water just didn't have anywhere to go. So there was massive flooding, and that was the first time I had seen anything like that in person. My boyfriend lived on part of a river in New Braunfels. Luckily his apartments were back off of the river, but people's houses that were right on the river LITERALLY floated away. You would look at the river and see refrigerators, parts of peoples houses, it was awful.

We get lots of inclement weather in Texas. All except volcanoes and blizzards. A blizzard is something I can't even imagine. When it snows here, everyone really freaks out. We shut down everything! A bunch of sissies! But we do ice here, and thats pretty bad too.

Storms are a way of life in Florida. I have been through a couple of hurricanes, although not really direct hits. About this time of the year our daily thunderstorms roll in. Just last night we had a pretty bad one. I lost power for a couple of hours (2nd time in a week). This morning, there was a lot of branch and leaf debris in the neighborhood. And speaking of lightning never striking twice.....the neighbor's 25-year-old oak, about 50 yards from my house, was struck by lightning last night for the 2nd time in a year. I woke up this morning to a sizable limb on the ground outside my bedroom window. So, I would say that I am cautious of storms.

I've never been in a tornado or not a really serious storm. I hate any storms though because they frighten my Barrell-butt dog soooooo much. She freaks out so badly, and it makes me so upset. Lucky we have pretty tame storms here.

Wellington, where do you live?

Three hurricanes, one of which flooded my town and most of the surrounding towns. Fortunately only tornado warnings, though. I rather enjoy storms as long as I'm here with Sierra. If I am at work and there is a thunderstorm, I'm nervous wreck!

YES! We had a tornado through our neighborhood two nights ago!

OMG it was scary. It was thankfully only a level 1, but it did plenty of damage. No one was hurt anywhere near us but up north they had worse tornados and someone died.

We lost two giant maple trees, both falling on our house and garage! It's unbelievable. Our whole street looks different. There's at least twenty trees gone. The power was out for 24 hours and there was a gas leak somewhere. Guys were up sawing off the larger chunks of tree in the wet dark night (no way to light it really, just flashlights and headlights).

We're a little shell-shocked right now. It felt good to come into work to get away from the chaos today. The cats have been confused. Lots of loud noises and strangers and the back yard looks completely different.

~Heather

Plenty of tornado warnings, but none I felt were close enough to go to the basement.
I love a thunderstorm if I am home and don't have to go outside in it. I especially love them at night.
We had a thunderstorm Thursday (yesterday) morning. I was home then because I took a day off work. Felicia hid under the bed and I held Beau until it was over.

Originally Posted by Deb25

Storms are a way of life in Florida. I have been through a couple of hurricanes, although not really direct hits. About this time of the year our daily thunderstorms roll in. Just last night we had a pretty bad one. I lost power for a couple of hours (2nd time in a week). This morning, there was a lot of branch and leaf debris in the neighborhood. And speaking of lightning never striking twice.....the neighbor's 25-year-old oak, about 50 yards from my house, was struck by lightning last night for the 2nd time in a year. I woke up this morning to a sizable limb on the ground outside my bedroom window. So, I would say that I am cautious of storms.

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That's true. However, some of my family and friends from Iowa think that we have hurricanes every day!

I like storms. They don't scare me.

I've been in one hurricane at sea and one that came a little too far inland and got us!

The first one was kinda funny. I lived in Lake Arrowhead, CA, a little mountain resort community in the mountains of Southern California. I woke up one Saturday, kinda in that half-sleep mode, ya know? And I heard my hamster, Simon, squeeking. I also realized I was wet. I was probably 10 or so and had never wet the bed in my life. I opened my eyes in terror at the thought of peeing in my bed and was looking straight up into the trees and a little squirrel face was staring at me...from a hole in my roof!! I screamed, the hampster squeaked (he was in 2 inches of water and could have drown!!), the squirrel squealed and ran away and my father ran into the room. NAKED. I'm not sure what shocked me the most We knew the thing was coming far inland the night before, but we assumed that the mountain would slow it down or even kill it (we lived at 5500 ft above sea level).

The second time was just a few years later over Thanksgiving weekend. We took a yacht out to Catalina Island (a small resort island off the Southern California coast)...well, we TRIED to take the yacht out to Catalina (why do men think they can outrun and outwit hurricanes and other natural disasters???), only we got hit by a freakin hurricane and it tore the sail to pieces. The waves were incredible and we all puked our guts out. It took forever to get back to port in Long Beach, and did little to assuage my incredible fear of water, as you can imagine.

The next day was much calmer and we had our sail repaired and set out again without even listening to the dang weather report - afterall, the hurricane had already passed, right? Well, the first one had! But that night, as we slept in the harbor at Avalon in Catalina, we were awoken by the harbor police who were evacuating everyone from their boats and taking them to shore, where we all had to sleep basically piled up with strangers in the Cathrine Hotel, with horrible elevator music coming over the intercom speakers all night long, as the wind and rain whipped everything around us all to hell.

It was fun.



The good news is, a few days later as we made our way back to Long Beach the ocean was so calm it was like glass...and a pod of dolphins escorted us for like an hour!! It was amazing! They were jumping out of the water alongside us (both sides of the boat) and it was fascinating...even for a water hater like me! The dog was having a great time watching them go, but was so excited that i though he was going to have a heart attack

P.S. I LOVE storms, especially thunderstorms. My father was struck by lightening in the groin once at the Grand Canyon, but not even that has stopped my love for electric storms. I'd rather been in a rain storm than any other weather.

Originally Posted by vinceneilsgirl

OMG LMFAO you have no idea how hard you just made me laugh. I had tears running down my cheeks! The funniest part is that your dad was naked...it's hilarious how you wrote that in all caps!

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So glad I could be of service

Geez...and I thought *I* was up late! Go to bed, girl! Or...did you just wake up? If so, it's Saturday! Go back to bed! I'm actually finally getting sleepy. Thank goodness for those little blue sleeping pills from Costco...it's nearly 3.