Natural Disasters

“Tornadoes...
Volcanic Eruptions...
Lightning...
Tsunami...
Earthquakes...
Floods...
Hurricanes...

Got any stories? On or off the trail?”

“one time, at band camp.....”

“We (me, wife, my 4 small kids, mom, and dad) rented a pontoon once and took it out in the middle of the lake, where there was a submerged island everyone swam on. The park rangers came by in their speedboat, very agitated, telling us all to get to shore immediatley, there was a big storm coming our way, and traveling fast. We started for shore asap but didn't make it before the rain, lightning, and giant waves hit. We made it to shore, beached the boat and hid under some cottage eaves while the lake got even wilder, lightning striking everywhere, and large trees crashing down all around us. After the longest 1/2 hour of my life, it quit as abruptly as it had begun.

The rangers later told us there was a tornado touched down very near the park. Another less fortunate group of boaters had their pontoon flipped over in the wind and their little girl drowned.”

“Me and three others were in the Bighorns a few years back doing a dayhike. We were on a high peak and we saw some nasty weather moving our way. Decided to start down when the hail hit. We took shelter under some trees about half way down to our camp. Lightning began striking above and below us. When it cleared enough we dashed back to camp, only to find all our tarps down and covered in hail. On the way down, one member of our group got lost (45 minutes or so). While we waited for him to show up a BIG bolt of lightning struck about 100 yards from us on a hill next to our camp. Very scary. We all lived and we found the guy downstream of us.”

“how does violin track down these pics so fast?”

“1. I lived in Wenatchee WA when Mt. St. Helens blew, and the day turned eeryily dark in the middle of the day.

2. I was sitting on the top of the Matterhorn (of the CA Sierras)when the peak was stuck by lightning, about 20 feet away from where I sat. I wasn't burned but I was deaf for about 30 minutes. We were all inspired to do a fast scramble off the peak, in record time.”

“Ridgerunning on the AT in MA a few years ago. The summer had been dry with drought conditions; most of the springs along the trail were gone, so one had to carry 5 or 6 quarts all the time. I had been hiking all day in high heat and humidity, had about 2 miles to go, all uphill, to the shelter I was s'pose to spend the night at, but knew that I was real close to heat exhaustion. I had a quart of water left and figured I could bivy in the woods, get up early the next morning, and make it to the shelter, where I knew there was a running spring.

Anyway, I woke up about 6:30 and was starting to pack up when a wicked "microburst" hit. Heavy rain, high wind, lightning, trees coming down all around me. I hunkered down for the 30 minutes or so it took for it to pass, and then headed out, again in heat and humidity. I had my quart of water, but I knew I was only 2 miles from the spring - what, maybe an hour's hike, tops.

Nope. Hit the AT to find it obliterated with blowdowns. In places, you couldn't even tell there was a trail. All I had with me were my folding saw and my K Bar. It took me 8 hours to get up to the spring, hacking and sawing my way through to open up the trail enough that people could pass. Fortunately, I met a couple en route who were able to spare a second quart of water.

The rest of the week was spent hiking the AT with a chain saw to clear the damage. At one tent site, massive tress had come crashing down and lay around like giant pick-up sticks. A hiker had pitched his tent such that when one of the trees went, the root system hurled him, still in his tent, quite a distance. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt.”

“I wasn't backpacking or anything, but when I was 5 yrs. old my family home (a pretty nice log cabin) burned down in a huge forest fire. We had to evac. in about 15 minutes. We got a basket of clothes, picture albums, and one pc. of antique furniture. My father had been working on the home for 5 yrs., buying material on a cash only basis. The sky went black, the sun got very small and blood red, and you could hear the wind that the fire itself was whipping up. It is one of my first memories and it is still very vivid. Dry summers in MT are scary stuff.”

“When I was working as a chain and rod man for a survey crew in Alaska, Mt. Spur erupted and spewed ash all over the damned place. We were two days hike out in the bush and had to wear bandanas over our faces to keep from breathing it in. The only good thing was, it was the only two days that month that it didn't rain, water that is!”

“Hail storm in the Sierras two years ago on the Llama-Rama-Ding-Dong trip was kinda wild.

Been thru numerous quakes here in California. My brother lived in Landers during the Landers Quake in 92. The fault line when through his back yard and under his garage. I'll post picks some day. Really tossed them around.”

“switchback: Lycos Image Gallery”

“How about putting up a pic of that F5 tornado in Oklahoma a couple years ago. Wwiiiiidddddddeee sucker!”

“I was fighting a forest fire in AZ once when it blew up and we had to drop our tools and run. That was pretty exciting.

Another time I was on a fire back near the source of Kelly Ck, in Idaho's Big Burn country when some burning snags came down and rolled down to us. One guy was about 1 foot from being killed.

I was driving through eastern Idaho when the Teton dam broke in '76. The river was flooding but we were safe on the Interstate.

Once we woke up to 90 mph winds in North Idaho. Trees and wires were down all over town and a few trailers were topled over.

Then there was the Mt. Borah eathquake in '83. It threw me off the couch and cracked our sidewalks.”

“Funny thing happened one day in the middle of dodging lightning and tornados in a hurricane...

This nearby volcane erupted causing all kinds of earthquakes. Then tsunamis hit land and dang near flooded the whole place.”

“I got caught in a sand storm outside of Moab while driving. The stationwagon had the vinyl wood paneling going down the side when it started and hardly a thing anything when it passed. The whole left side look as if it was attacked with a wire brush.”

“Our five gallon bathroom electric water heater gave up the ghost one February during the biggest snow storm of the winter.

Town got nearly 10 feet of snow that week, and we had to make do with a three gallon water heater for the rest of the winter.”

“....
We also had a two foot diameter, 40 foot tall cottonwood tree fall down on, and diagonally through, our 22 foot travel trailer (we were gone at the time, but were living in it) during a 100 mph windstorm up here. Up here, we get wind a lot.

Scared the crap out of the cats, and sandblasted poor Bruce (for those of you who know "Bruce"), too.”

“Mel - Does that mean your trailer is out of commission? If so, that's a bummer!”

“Naw...

That happened five years ago.

I'll have to show you the pictures that were in the newspaper.

John has the advantage of doing sheet metal for a living, and made a damned good repair job of what the insurance company said was "totaled".

The base of the tree came down in the bathroom, and the front came down right through the roof above the chair across from the couch!

It took out all the cabinents above the table, but didn't break the windows in the front, or the picture window next to the side.”