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thefridayfive Acts of Nature
Aug. 16th, 2020 11:56 am1. Have you ever been in a hurricane or typhoon? Which one, when and where?
I've been through a few hurricanes, thought fortunately never a truly major one. The most memorable was when I lived in Hampton Roads, VA when Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999. Just the week before, there had been a lingering hurricane/tropical storm that had brought a week of solid rain just as we were moving into our new house. Then right before schools were due to start, Hurricane Floyd arrived and caused the usual damage as well as coastal flooding on already saturated ground. A tornado that spawned from Floyd hit what was due to be my youngest son's kindergarten class, taking off the roof.
2. Have you ever been near an erupting volcano? Which one, when and where?
No, although I was on one of the very last flights to cross from the US to Europe before they shut down airspace due to the erupting volcano on Iceland. And although it wasn't erupting, I did climb Mt Vesuvius and stood at the rim to see steam and gas vents rising from the caldera.
3. Are there tornadoes where you live? Has a tornado come near you?
Tornadoes aren't common where I am now in PA, although not unheard of. But I did live in Tornado Alley in Lubbock Texas when I first came to the States. A couple of months after arriving in Lubbock, my husband and I were driving from the AF base where we lived into Lubbock and for no apparent reason the traffic slowed. Off to our right was a funnel cloud slowly getting longer and longer. The sky was green-ish black and looked as if it was boiling. We got to our destination, the local mall, and from store to store listened to the radio as reports of that tornado had hit a trailer park and was heading to the base. I later found out that it had gone between the two runways on base, causing minimal damage. There were a further few occasions while I lived there that we had tornado warnings and spent a good few ours in the hallway with blankets and radio, but that was the only tornado I've actually seen.
4. Have you experienced severe flooding? When and where?
It seems seems AF bases are magnets for bad weather. When I lived in northern California back in the mid-90s, there was severe flooding along the Yuba and Sutter rivers. We were fortunate enough to live on base which was away from the rivers and slightly higher elevation. Many people in the local towns were evacuated to base and my son's school didn't reopen after the winter break because it was an emergency shelter. We had to take my other son to a doctor's appointment and crossed the Yuba River. The road bridge parallels the rail bridge and is near the same height and despite the levies the water was just a couple of feet, perhaps, below the rail bridge as I looked across and almost to the top of the levies. One of the nearby levies did burst, and a friend's house (he wasn't occupying it at the time) had several feet of water come through.
5. What is the most extreme weather you have ever experienced?
I would say, as a matter of consistent extreme weather, it would have to be Lubbock, TX. Even without the threat of tornadoes, I had never -- and still haven't really -- seen storms as intense as those I experienced there. To the point that when I was describing them to my best friend back in England, she gibly dismissed them as 'how bad can a thunderstorm get'. I was proved right, however, a few years later when she spent a year in Houston and called me up after a particularly severe storm there telling me how right I was and how sorry she was for not believing how intense Texas thunderstorms can be.
I've been through a few hurricanes, thought fortunately never a truly major one. The most memorable was when I lived in Hampton Roads, VA when Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999. Just the week before, there had been a lingering hurricane/tropical storm that had brought a week of solid rain just as we were moving into our new house. Then right before schools were due to start, Hurricane Floyd arrived and caused the usual damage as well as coastal flooding on already saturated ground. A tornado that spawned from Floyd hit what was due to be my youngest son's kindergarten class, taking off the roof.
2. Have you ever been near an erupting volcano? Which one, when and where?
No, although I was on one of the very last flights to cross from the US to Europe before they shut down airspace due to the erupting volcano on Iceland. And although it wasn't erupting, I did climb Mt Vesuvius and stood at the rim to see steam and gas vents rising from the caldera.
3. Are there tornadoes where you live? Has a tornado come near you?
Tornadoes aren't common where I am now in PA, although not unheard of. But I did live in Tornado Alley in Lubbock Texas when I first came to the States. A couple of months after arriving in Lubbock, my husband and I were driving from the AF base where we lived into Lubbock and for no apparent reason the traffic slowed. Off to our right was a funnel cloud slowly getting longer and longer. The sky was green-ish black and looked as if it was boiling. We got to our destination, the local mall, and from store to store listened to the radio as reports of that tornado had hit a trailer park and was heading to the base. I later found out that it had gone between the two runways on base, causing minimal damage. There were a further few occasions while I lived there that we had tornado warnings and spent a good few ours in the hallway with blankets and radio, but that was the only tornado I've actually seen.
4. Have you experienced severe flooding? When and where?
It seems seems AF bases are magnets for bad weather. When I lived in northern California back in the mid-90s, there was severe flooding along the Yuba and Sutter rivers. We were fortunate enough to live on base which was away from the rivers and slightly higher elevation. Many people in the local towns were evacuated to base and my son's school didn't reopen after the winter break because it was an emergency shelter. We had to take my other son to a doctor's appointment and crossed the Yuba River. The road bridge parallels the rail bridge and is near the same height and despite the levies the water was just a couple of feet, perhaps, below the rail bridge as I looked across and almost to the top of the levies. One of the nearby levies did burst, and a friend's house (he wasn't occupying it at the time) had several feet of water come through.
5. What is the most extreme weather you have ever experienced?
I would say, as a matter of consistent extreme weather, it would have to be Lubbock, TX. Even without the threat of tornadoes, I had never -- and still haven't really -- seen storms as intense as those I experienced there. To the point that when I was describing them to my best friend back in England, she gibly dismissed them as 'how bad can a thunderstorm get'. I was proved right, however, a few years later when she spent a year in Houston and called me up after a particularly severe storm there telling me how right I was and how sorry she was for not believing how intense Texas thunderstorms can be.
