Ask Lemmy

Magnitude 6.7 earthquake. Woke up to it shaking my bed violently in my dorm room. (Boarding school) Thankfully, I didn't have anything above me that could fall, but some of the other students kept books in the shelves above their beds. Suffice it to say they got an even ruder awakening than I did...

There was a big aftershock a few minutes later -- just after I'd gotten the hell out of the building, basically -- and smaller aftershocks for days afterwards.

It put a big crack in the floor of my dorm and everyone who lived there had to stay outside all day until the administration declared it safe for us to re-enter.

That was coincidentally the same day as a school festival and I'd spent the evening before working with my classmates converting the art room into a haunted house. I never got to see the mess, but whatever happened in there was so bad the room was unusable for months. Most of the rest of the festival (e.g. outdoor stalls and such) was still able to be run though, so they carried on with the parts they could. It was surreal.

Not me, but my aunt and cousins were on holiday in Sri Lanka in 2004 when the tsunami hit. They managed to get to a higher elevation in time, but lost most of their stuff, including passports, as the place they were staying at was basically washed away.

I live on the east coast of the US, and I've experienced about four earthquakes in my lifetime. None very big.

Hurricane Sandy in Connecticut. My house caught on fire…twice…when a tree fell on some wires and caused power to backfeed into my home. Luckily I didn’t touch anything or I might not be here to tell the tale. It was supposedly put out once (fire was inside the walls), and I was allowed back to fetch a few essentials, but it filled up with smoke again because of a hot spot or something…and I had to convince dispatch to send a truck out a second time. I was displaced for three months and lost about 85% of my belongings. Luckily some VERY brave firefighters prevented my entire house from burning to the ground. 0/10 - do not recommend

I’ve also been in earthquakes, blizzards, and wildfires, but nothing comparable to that experience on a personal level.

Took a direct hit from Hurricane Ivan. Blew all our roofing off so the rain was blowing in and big chunks of ceiling were falling in while we were all huddled in the hallway. We found the roof of our back porch in the middle of the street, about 4 houses down. We've ridden out a lot of hurricanes over the decades, but Ivan was the scariest.

In the end we came out of it smelling like a rose. My wife's parents had both recently passed, and we were planning on buying their house out of their estate. I was in the middle of readying our house for sale when the storm hit. Our house got wrecked, while the parents house was left pretty much unhurt, aside from a few missing shingles and a downed tree. We moved in immediately and ended up selling our house as-is to the "we buy ugly houses" people for about half it's normal value, collected a fat insurance check from Liberty Mutual, which combined with the sale was enough to pay off the mortgage and pocket a few grand, which was right at what we hoped to sell it for because we didn't have very much equity in it at the time. We ended up right where we planned on being, much sooner than we thought we would. We got lucky for sure...

Does the 2024 election count?

I’ve experienced a handful of very near tornados, lots of crazy thunderstorms and blizzards growing up in the Midwest as well as many small earthquakes here in Southern California.

The one recently in Vermont.

Australia catches fire every half decade or so. Never had anything burn down because the RFS are fucking champions, but having it come near to your property is not uncommon here. When the big fires were going in 2019 we were wearing ppe at times to avoid the smoke inhalation. Wild times.

A few earthquakes back in the early 2000s (UK)

A flooding in the UK around 2007

Sandstorm in an area called the empty quarter back in 2012

I've been through a few hurricanes and a couple tornados. I could see where some folks (like the landed gentry or people with families) might be afraid of them and the damage they can wreak, but personally I find them exhilarating.

Stepping out into 70 mile an hour winds and 3 feet of rain or watching a tornado rip apart buildings is humbling. No matter how strong we build our walls, the raw power of nature can still tear them down.

Earthquake in 2012

Multiple tropical cyclones every year. They don't really do anything harmful, so we're all chill about them.

Living near a major river, and having gone to school on an island in that river, flooding always was a topic. Especially when it went with two "once in a century" flood within less than a year.

Yes. Humans.