Here in Vancouver, (like LA, San Francisco, Seattle and so on) we get Earthquakes. Scientists are expecting a "big one" anytime now.  :-[ :'( :(

In Georgia we get the once in a blue moon tornado but other than that we don't get a whole lot of natural disasters here.

:(I live in san Jose so earthquakes are most likely.In the hill forest fores sometimes occor.

hurricanes,thunder and lightning,snowstorms,blackouts...


Howard

  Southern California..as people have said, we get earthquakes, we are prone to heat, which sparks forest fires as well as camping enthusiasts who forget safety procedure and also cause fires! then there are drought conditions because of the heat. and when it's not hot sometimes it floods certain areas during and after rainstorms.  oh, and random animal attacks as we build homes further into the mountains.  Bears, coyotes, and mountain lions are sometimes in the news.

I posted a thread like this on the old board before it crashed.  Anyway, in my neck of the woods we get the occasional hurricane.  There's always a possibility for minor earthquakes, but that's about it.

Tornados, floods, freezing rain, blizzards

Earthquakes and some VERY rare tornados.

Nothing really (knock on wood). The only disaster I can think of was the ice storm that we had a few years ago.

  Southern California..as people have said, we get earthquakes, we are prone to heat, which sparks forest fires as well as camping enthusiasts who forget safety procedure and also cause fires! then there are drought conditions because of the heat. and when it's not hot sometimes it floods certain areas during and after rainstorms.   oh, and random animal attacks as we build homes further into the mountains.  Bears, coyotes, and mountain lions are sometimes in the news.

You live in southern California too? I have, all my life, and I am very well aware of the earthquakes. I remember the Northridge quake from 10 years ago very well. Also, I know about the forest fires; we had some in the area last October.

I live in the Pacific so we get Typhoons and the occasional earthquake.  In fact, it is sometimes called Typhoon Alley because so many storms pass through this area.  The last storm to hit us directly had winds exceeding 180 mph...it was so strong that it made concrete walls threaten to cave in and actually caused concrete telephone poles break in half (among other things).  Many people lost their homes and valuables.  I wouldn't want to relive that day....that was the scariest storm I have ever lived through and there have been many over the years. 

I'm Australian... so obviously I'd suffer a tiny bit of draught.. (sp?)
And because of the river.. the 100 year floods..

Landslides and bushfires. The first are rare, the second quite common.

Pigeons mainly - sods!  ;)

Blizzards mostly.  The worst natural disaster I was ever through was Hurricane Andrew when I lived in Florida back in '92.

And this is why I'm thankful I live here in the UK.  We rarely have any major natural disasters.

There was the hurricane in late 80's/early 90's (can't quite remember the exact date) which did a fair bit of damage and that serious snowfall in December 1990 which knocked out the power for a week.  (Apparently it was the wrong kind of snow  ::) )

I can remember about 3 earthquakes in my lifetime.  Nothing stronger than some tiles off roofs.  There was another but I was at a birthday party in a room full of 3 year olds so I didn't notice anything  ;D

I am having a daja vu but I am sure it was old board so I will answer again. We mainly have snow-a couple of nor'easters a year but I think they are fun. (Of course shovelling afterwards isn't as much fun as watching the snow come down). We do have an ice storm from time to time but not too often. We also have tornados but they are very small. We sometimes wonder if it was a tornado or a big gust of wind. We also had ONE earthquake that I can recall. But our earthquakes are very deep so there isn't usually too much damage. We do get floods from time to time.



Cat

The only natural disaster we have here in New York is the police...buttheads. :P

I used to live somewhere else and just in my part where i lived (a very lonely quiet creepy deserted area with only a few others) We had quite a big earthquake chain reaction. 5 earthquakes in one day. Then the next day the chain reaction started. We had to stay in the doorframes of the house for safety incase. Fat chance. A few bits and bobs from the roof of the downstairs fell and the power went off for 2 weeks. It was so creepy. I watched the news and it told us about the earthquake and how scared everyone was. A few people had heart attacks and died which was sad to hear but no-one's houses were terribly destroyed. I hated that dam earthquake! I remember it like yesterday but it was a few years ago now.

And this is why I'm thankful I live here in the UK.  We rarely have any major natural disasters.

There was the hurricane in late 80's/early 90's (can't quite remember the exact date) which did a fair bit of damage and that serious snowfall in December 1990 which knocked out the power for a week.  (Apparently it was the wrong kind of snow  ::) )

I can remember about 3 earthquakes in my lifetime.  Nothing stronger than some tiles off roofs.  There was another but I was at a birthday party in a room full of 3 year olds so I didn't notice anything  ;D


I remember an earthquake happened a few years ago but I was only told about it - I didn't know it had happened.  ;D

I believe, in all seriousness, that if the UK has a natural problem, flooding will be the main cause of it.

Here in Houston usually it would be a Hurricane, but here lately, the Tropical Storms have been much more frequent and worse.

Mainly tornadoes, floods, and strong thunderstorms in the spring and summer. An occasional snowstorm or ice storm in the winter. We've haven't really had a real deep snowstorm since 1995.

Biggest problem faced in Brisbane is severe Thunderstorms and hail in Summer

Apart from that parts of the city are prone to flooding, and we haven't had one of them for some time now.....

I forgot to mention that we get the remnents of hurracanes. By the time it reaches us, it has lost its punch. Boy, we seem to get everything but what we get isn't usually too bad (only the snow and occationally a flood).




Cat

I believe, in all seriousness, that if the UK has a natural problem, flooding will be the main cause of it.


I think you might be right there Bobby.  Locally there has been a lot of problems in the villages nearer the river then I am.  In all these places there has been a lot of new houses built on the flood plains of the river.  Then they are surprised when the houses flood during times of very heavy rainfall.  ::)

Since I live on an island we get some terrific winter storms because of the wind.  We also had a hurricane last year but missed my town.
Other that that the biggest disaster we have if the driving skills of the locals.

I used to live somewhere else and just in my part where i lived (a very lonely quiet creepy deserted area with only a few others) We had quite a big earthquake chain reaction. 5 earthquakes in one day. Then the next day the chain reaction started. We had to stay in the doorframes of the house for safety incase. Fat chance. A few bits and bobs from the roof of the downstairs fell and the power went off for 2 weeks. It was so creepy. I watched the news and it told us about the earthquake and how scared everyone was. A few people had heart attacks and died which was sad to hear but no-one's houses were terribly destroyed. I hated that dam earthquake! I remember it like yesterday but it was a few years ago now.
:PAre you going to watch "10.5' on Sunday?

I used to live somewhere else and just in my part where i lived (a very lonely quiet creepy deserted area with only a few others) We had quite a big earthquake chain reaction. 5 earthquakes in one day. Then the next day the chain reaction started. We had to stay in the doorframes of the house for safety incase. Fat chance. A few bits and bobs from the roof of the downstairs fell and the power went off for 2 weeks. It was so creepy. I watched the news and it told us about the earthquake and how scared everyone was. A few people had heart attacks and died which was sad to hear but no-one's houses were terribly destroyed. I hated that dam earthquake! I remember it like yesterday but it was a few years ago now.
:PAre you going to watch "10.5' on Sunday?

I don't think they have NBC in Australia.

I forgot to add that British Columbia is king of forest fires. Last summer there was a few thousand! One time last August, going outside ment breathing heavy smoke.  >:(

Nebraska gets quite a few tornadoes, but there's never been one here in Lincoln. Local legend has it that it's because we're protected by the "P*nis Of The Plains."

http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/goodhue/front.jpg

here in Doncaster we're very boring earthquake/hurricane-wise, so I'll go for "Saturday nights after the nightclubs close" ::)

Last night there was a massive tornado outbreak about 15 miles south of town (Lincoln, NE). One small town (pop. about 300) was completely leveled and a few other small towns in the area suffered major damage as well. A high school in the vicinity was also heavily damaged. There was one fatality but thankfully no other serious injuries. This is the first time I can recall this happening in this area. I've been through areas that were hit by tornadoes before but it's a lot different when it happens so close to home, and when you see familiar buildings and homes get destroyed.  :(

I'm my own private natural disaster.  ;D

I'm in calif so it has to be earthquakes :-\\

here in Doncaster we're very boring earthquake/hurricane-wise, so I'll go for "Saturday nights after the nightclubs close" ::)


Lol. Too true.  :)

In the past couple of weeks, we've had 3 tornado warnings, 2 tornado watches and umpteen severe thunderstorm warnings where I live in IL.  In the winter, we usually get blizzards and freezing rain.
That's right, I remember you guys got hit pretty hard a couple of weeks ago.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And this is why I'm thankful I live here in the UK.  We rarely have any major natural disasters.

There was the hurricane in late 80's/early 90's (can't quite remember the exact date) which did a fair bit of damage and that serious snowfall in December 1990 which knocked out the power for a week.  (Apparently it was the wrong kind of snow  )

I can remember about 3 earthquakes in my lifetime.  Nothing stronger than some tiles off roofs.  There was another but I was at a birthday party in a room full of 3 year olds so I didn't notice anything 

Karen that hurricane was early 1990 (march-ish from memory) - I remember I was living in "delightful" Slough and we lost our roof twice in 3 days.  That was the storm Rene from Ello Ello was nearly killed in when a roadside billboard nearly decapitated him as he drove past it.
I know there was an earthquake in the UK (3.4 on scale) when I lived there - possible around Sept/Oct 1989.  I was living in Uxbridge and I said to people at the pub I worked at "I just felt a quake" and they kept saying "nah you probably felt Concords sonic boom" but I knew I had felt something - I have felt way more than enough quakes in my life to know the feeling in your stomach.  Then that night on the news my feelings were confirmed !!  I would have to dig out my diarys to find the exact date.

Down here in Perth our main natural worries are the occassional big storm which can be accompanied by spectacular water spouts/tornados either from the ocean or from the Swan River which divides our city into North and South.  My friends house was just missed during one last year - the houses next to her and behind her were destroyed.
We get bushfires and revolting dust storms and quakes here too.  Last seriously wobbly quake to hit Perth was Feb 1988 - I was stuck in a lift for that one and came close to slapping the stupid screaming females I was stuck with !

In my mums town 2 hours north east of Perth in the wheatbelt they get rumbling quakes daily - they are considered the most active quake area in Australia.  The rumbles are usually around the 2 or 3 mark - but in the past 35 years there have been several that have flattened towns in the area and were between 6 and 7 on the richter.
She also gets the interesting (?) phenomenom of mud storms.  Where a storm front gets mixed in with a dust storm and red mud falls from the sky.  The last one was the other week on mothers day.  It ruined paddocks of wheat and made for a pretty big clean up round town.

Where we lived in the north of the state we were in the northern quake belt and the cyclone belt.  We had quakes measuring up to 6 up there but as there is no dense population and the little towns were all single storey residences, the only damage was generally large cracks in the ground - no building damage. 
The cyclone season was from Dec to March - sometimes as late as April.  There were some particularly nasty ones that destroyed entire towns but my memorys of them were that we got 4 or 5 days off school !!!  Ahhhh childhood priorities !!
In 1976 we also had the revolting grasshopper plague - they were the largest I have ever seen and it lasted for 3 months.  It was hard to ride my bike to school thru them all.

Other than that - drought and heatwaves are our main one here in the West.  They are pretty consistant.

When I lived in the farming region of New South Wales in 1984 I barely got thru the mouse plague - it was even more revolting than the grasshopper one.  I despise mice.  We use to have to scoop several thousand a day out of the pool and burn them.  In the tack sheds and stables there were millions and we would have to spray kero on them to get them out in the open and ten burn them.  And at night you would have to strip your bed and check for nests of babies in the sheets before you could sleep.  Millions of acres of crops were destroyed over several months.  To this day I still have mice plague nightmares. Ick - its freaking me out just typing this.

Karen that hurricane was early 1990 (march-ish from memory) - I remember I was living in "delightful" Slough and we lost our roof twice in 3 days.  That was the storm Rene from Ello Ello was nearly killed in when a roadside billboard nearly decapitated him as he drove past it.


Oh! Gordon Kaye. Gosh! Has it been that long ago?  :o

Karen that hurricane was early 1990 (march-ish from memory) - I remember I was living in "delightful" Slough and we lost our roof twice in 3 days.  That was the storm Rene from Ello Ello was nearly killed in when a roadside billboard nearly decapitated him as he drove past it.
I know there was an earthquake in the UK (3.4 on scale) when I lived there - possible around Sept/Oct 1989.  I was living in Uxbridge and I said to people at the pub I worked at "I just felt a quake" and they kept saying "nah you probably felt Concords sonic boom" but I knew I had felt something - I have felt way more than enough quakes in my life to know the feeling in your stomach.  Then that night on the news my feelings were confirmed !!  I would have to dig out my diarys to find the exact date.





I thought the hurricane was slightly earlier than that but you could be right.  My dh will know because a major orienteering event was cancelled because the forest was flattened.

The 'quake in 89 was during the day.  I was at work and we blamed one of the lecturers!  There was always mysterious bangs and clanks coming from his lab; we just figured he'd worked out how to completely wreck something.

In the past couple of weeks, we've had 3 tornado warnings, 2 tornado watches and umpteen severe thunderstorm warnings where I live in IL.  In the winter, we usually get blizzards and freezing rain.


cheerleader,

Don't forget the dreaded "seiche" phenomenon that's seen on Lake Michigan.

Also sometimes called a "rogue wave", these are basically one-off huge waves (like 6-15 foot tall) that come out of nowhere and suck unsuspecting people off of beaches and piers.  They're more than just "a wave", since the whole water level rises by that much.  It is a combinstion of winds that blow in a certain direction, and the very long-and-narrow shape of the lake.

A seiche can also take the form of a sudden and DRASTIC effect of the water level lowering at one end of the lake, sucking anyone who is in the water far away from shore.

Nasty stuff if you get caught in one.

The closest natural disaster area round here is probably Perth- there used to be flooding there, but they built a high wall next to the river, so now it doesn't flood anymore.
The next closest, I think, is Comrie, which is quite a way away. Anyway, it's an earthquake zone. They're not usually very big earthquakes- sometimes they knock things off shelves, shake pictures off walls and break cups, but that's about as strong as they get.

Dunno If i posted here yet, but in the Chi (Chicago), we have blizzards! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Snow Days!

Well in southern Cali, we, of course get our share of tremors & quakes. Living near the mountains we also have brushfires (sometimes intense enough to cause showers of ash from the fires), and then in the rainy season we get mudslides (b/c the fires burned away the brush on the hillsides) & flash flooding in the valleys.
Of course we have the famous smog too…

Here in Indiana we had a tornado watch a couple of nights ago.  >:(

Every 30 years we have horrible Floods..1935...which, believe it or not, I wasn't around for...1965 which I remember (I was 5) becasue a huge dith acroos the street from our house that ran the legnth of 5 city blocks and was very deep, filled up with water. In 1995 we had more floods but by then technology and common sense had progressed enough to stem the tide ::)

Oh! Gordon Kaye. Gosh! Has it been that long ago? 

Yeah amazing hey - he was meant to fly to Oz that month to do the stage version of ello ello and the wonderful Max Gillies stepped in with only about a weeks rehearsal.

I thought the hurricane was slightly earlier than that but you could be right.  My dh will know because a major orienteering event was cancelled because the forest was flattened.

The 'quake in 89 was during the day.  I was at work and we blamed one of the lecturers!  There was always mysterious bangs and clanks coming from his lab; we just figured he'd worked out how to completely wreck something.

Flattening forrests - that can stuff an orienteering event for sure !!  I know several of the famous oaks in Sevenoaks were knocked down in that same hurricane.

Have been checking my old diaries and all I have written is "100mph winds took the roof off" on 25 Jan 1990.  Cant believe I havent written more details !!!!!  But at least we have narrowed down the dates !  Have also wriiten "Big storm, flooding in Windsor" on 7Feb so not sure if it was still the same hurricane that many days later.

Cannot find a diary entry for the quake.  I know it was during the lunch shift at the pub I was working at - but for some reason I have put weather reports in my diary but nothing about the quake !

Flattening forrests - that can stuff an orienteering event for sure !!  I know several of the famous oaks in Sevenoaks were knocked down in that same hurricane.




I think 6 of the 7 came down and they later replanted 7 new ones.  Maybe they should rename it Seven-new-oaks-and-an-old-one!

We went to the forest about a year later for an event and there were still many fallen trees waiting to be cleared.  It was in the New Forest which has lots of Beech trees which have really shallow roots on them.  I made very slow progress either climbing over or walking around the ones that were across the paths.  (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

I think 6 of the 7 came down and they later replanted 7 new ones.  Maybe they should rename it Seven-new-oaks-and-an-old-one!

We went to the forest about a year later for an event and there were still many fallen trees waiting to be cleared.  It was in the New Forest which has lots of Beech trees which have really shallow roots on them.  I made very slow progress either climbing over or walking around the ones that were across the paths.  (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)


That would be my excuse too Karen !!

Yeah i remember it was a big percentage of the Seven Oaks - considering how old they were and how much history they had survived thru - and one nasty whopping storm takes out most of them in one day.

Here in Appalachia, we're protected by the mountains where tornados are concerned, although one touches down in the area every few years........but our major thing is flooding. A lot of the towns and communities are built in low lying valleys, near rivers and streams, and when heavy rains come, it can be devestating.

Where I live now, I usually get the odd flood. Not too big, not too small, just enough to cover your tootsies with water.  :D

Tornados! Which I'm deathly afraid of! :(

Drive-by shootings... ::)

  You just had another one last night, too.  I'm so sick of "Severe Thunderstorm Warning"s.  Last night, the kids were having fun "watching mommy's flowers flood" and it's been storming off and on again today.  Typical Memorial Day weekend.http://inthe00s.com/Smileys/webby/rolleyes.gif


Yes, we had all those watch/warning things last night here in Northern Indiana.  But did not get any tornados.

I understand Indianapolis did get s few twisters though.  ???

Drive-by shootings... ::)

Have those too.  :(

I have heard that the mid-west has been hit hard by storms. I hope all that live in that area are ok.



Cat

In Georgia we get the once in a blue moon tornado but other than that we don't get a whole lot of natural disasters here.


Unless you consider the one snowflake that falls every year, shutting down highways, closing schools, emptying grocery stores, causing three day power outages. . .


and Atlanta traffic.

Hurricane Andrew when I lived in Florida back in '92.


Hurricane Andrew? Poor you! :( I was just learning about hurricane andrew!

Earthquakes and mudslides here in Southern CA! Fires don't count b/c they are often not natural!

But, in Philadelphia (my hometown), blizzards, thunderstorms, snowstorms, and lightning are common.

Tanya

Earthquakes and mudslides here in Southern CA! Fires don't count b/c they are often not natural!


I know; I've lived through several quakes in southern CA! Next month it'll be 11 years since I first experienced a really big quake. (Of course I've lived through smaller quakes, but never one with as much intensity as the Northridge quake of '94.)