question
0
Votes
Votes
1
Answer
Answer
M$0.25
What's the most interesting natural disaster you've experienced?
Recently there was a pretty strong quake on the Mexico Gulf of California. Anyone on Mahalo feel that? How are things doing?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090803/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_quake
It'd be fun to share other interesting natural disaster survival stories. Enjoy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090803/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_quake
It'd be fun to share other interesting natural disaster survival stories. Enjoy.
The asker of this question selected no best answer.
answers (1)
Aside from the initial moments of sheer terror, the 1994 Northridge earthquake was definitely interesting. I was living just over a mile from the epicenter at the time, and the direction to the quake's focus was almost straight down. The first main shock was vertical, and strong enough to bounce everything from cups to cars into the air. I woke up falling, in total darkness, then hit the floor while being hit by assorted falling/flying objects. The noise was deafening, a grinding, crunching, thumping roar. I yelled for my wife, who was working in an adjacent room, but could barely hear my own voice. It's the only time in my life when I thought I was going to die.
Eventually, the shaking stopped, my wife and daughter were fine, and I was able to dig my way out of the debris. The house was standing (it turned out there was no structural damage), but the water heater had been ripped away from its connections, causing a gas leak. Fortunately, out next-door neighbor had heard and smelled the leak and was shutting off the gas by the time we got outside.
By daylight, our neighborhood didn't look too bad. All of the cinder-block walls had fallen, as had most of the chimneys, but all of the houses were otherwise intact, and power was restored by late afternoon.
And then there were the aftershocks. People had different reactions. Some people camped out in neighborhood parks for weeks with their microwave ovens and TVs, with extension cords duct-taped to the street and running back into the homes on the other side. Others found that after experiencing a few dozen aftershocks they could estimate the approximate magnitude and distance to the epicenter well enough to compete against each other to see who came closest.
In general, this experience convinced me that earthquakes are the most survivable of the great natural disasters: Tornadoes and hurricanes can cause total obliteration, destroying entire towns and scattering the fragments. Volcanoes and tsunamis can be even worse. However, earthquake-resistant construction doesn't have to be expensive (although the building codes do have to be enforced and updated as needed). Also, and more subjectively, I survived the Northridge earthquake, but my experience of tornadoes and hurricanes is limited to seeing pictures of their aftermath.
Eventually, the shaking stopped, my wife and daughter were fine, and I was able to dig my way out of the debris. The house was standing (it turned out there was no structural damage), but the water heater had been ripped away from its connections, causing a gas leak. Fortunately, out next-door neighbor had heard and smelled the leak and was shutting off the gas by the time we got outside.
By daylight, our neighborhood didn't look too bad. All of the cinder-block walls had fallen, as had most of the chimneys, but all of the houses were otherwise intact, and power was restored by late afternoon.
And then there were the aftershocks. People had different reactions. Some people camped out in neighborhood parks for weeks with their microwave ovens and TVs, with extension cords duct-taped to the street and running back into the homes on the other side. Others found that after experiencing a few dozen aftershocks they could estimate the approximate magnitude and distance to the epicenter well enough to compete against each other to see who came closest.
In general, this experience convinced me that earthquakes are the most survivable of the great natural disasters: Tornadoes and hurricanes can cause total obliteration, destroying entire towns and scattering the fragments. Volcanoes and tsunamis can be even worse. However, earthquake-resistant construction doesn't have to be expensive (although the building codes do have to be enforced and updated as needed). Also, and more subjectively, I survived the Northridge earthquake, but my experience of tornadoes and hurricanes is limited to seeing pictures of their aftermath.
voted helpful: pellrider
Related questions
140 characters left
ask any question
