Worst weather event you've ever experienced

[Judique]

The Blizzard of 1978.

February 1978 - I was stranded at Logan in Boston overnight and next afternoon was able to fly into Reagan. Washington was snowbound and we couldn't reach the house and had to walk through huge drifts from the car. When I flew into Boston I had no idea there was a storm until I went to change planes - canceled all the way.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Was it a tornado? Hurricane? Earthquake? What's something that made you go "holy ****, I need to take cover".

Recent trip in RV. Staying in Law Vegas overnight. Biggest thunderstorm I've ever seen in this area. I mean like a real bad mid-west thunderstorm. Not at all the type of rain storm we get in south west US area. Lightning, wind, hail, rain. We were told to go to the main club house building, not ride it out in our fifth wheel.

Also made it through big flood in SF/Bay Area in 1982. I was driving from SoCal to visit my mother in Marin County. Managed to actually make it into Marin County, but was stuck at local grocery store parking lot. It was in a bit higher ground than all around it. My sister came by, walking, as the bus from the city was dropping off people at the highway and not coming into local towns for drop offs. We decided to walk the mile and a half (partially uphill) to mom's house. There were flooded cars in the drainage ditch down the middle of the main street and a real current running down the street. But we made it.

 

[ronandannette]

No, it's not.


We've had many, many major blizzards, but they aren't an emergency or anything. We just stay at home and wait for the roads to be passable and then proceed as usual. Usually plowing is started while snow is still falling.

A few years ago we had all the right conditions for a tornado (even had a few funnel clouds, but luckily we were spared. That was one heck of a night to be standing outside watching it all.

Would this be considered weather? Never in my life will I forget the days of torrential rains in 2013 that resulted in a catestrophic flood that swamped my beloved city within the mind-boggling span of just a few hours. That oval white thing on the right hand side of the picture is the Saddledome. The water rose up to the bottom of corporate-box level.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Hurricane Sandy in 2012 utterly decimated everywhere, everyone and everything I have ever known across many states. Our roof was shredded and our home was over an hour inland from water. DH packed our Jeep with lots of supplies like gloves and shovels, plastic bags etc and went with FIL one day and a friend from same hometown on another to just drive in, just wander our hometown and help people physically dig out. The local Home Depot and Lowes Managers were willing to match what we (US plus companion) were giving dollar for dollar, so across two days about $2K in gloves & such was distributed.

Thought I'd never live to see worse, there is always worse

 

[prairie_girl]

Would this be considered weather? Never in my life will I forget the days of torrential rains in 2013 that resulted in a catestrophic flood that swamped my beloved city within the mind-boggling span of just a few hours. That oval white thing on the right hand side of the picture is the Saddledome. The water rose up to the bottom of corporate-box level.
View attachment 617860

Flooding is weather. I totally forgot about our major flooding in 1997. It sparked national attention for many reasons, not least of which was when then Prime Minister came here to ‘help’ sandbag after calling the election.

 

[OKW8297]

Blizzard of 1978 in RI

 

[bcla]

Come to thing of it, once I experienced rain so hard that the freeway flooded and traffic just stopped after a few drivers ended up driving into 3-4 ft deep water and flooding their engines. What apparently happened was that there was a freeway built into trench that went down and then back up for about a half mile. They had pumps to clear out excessive standing water, but they failed. So it was like a trough that water just filled in, including from the surrounding area.

It wasn't raining so hard any more, but there was only one offramp between the standing water and my car, but we just weren't moving. A few got out, shut off our engines, and walked around to just stretch. I think I was stuck there for at least 90 minutes.

 

[fla4fun]

Hurricane Irma. The eye went right over us and it sounded like someone was throwing bricks at the house all night. I will not ride out another hurricane.

I don’t recall the blizzard of 1978 being all that bad. We lost power, but we had a gas stove, and the house stayed warm enough. Mom made a big pot of hot chocolate and we played games. The neighbors had it rough though. They were in the process of having a fireplace put in, so they had a big hole in the exterior wall of their house. Their toilets froze and cracked. We asked them to come over, but they decided to tough it out.

 

[neverlandsky]

Hanukkah Eve Windstorm, 2006. Didn't had power for a week.

 

[Wendy1985]

Hurricane Irma

 

[MochaDrinker]

The dericho last summer was very very scary. My hometown looked like something out of a movie after

 

[Skywalker]

A tornado. I was at work and the wind picked up and the sky kind of went green. The front door kept blowing open so someone went to close it and we heard LOUD wind and the building just kind of started to shake. We grabbed the employees plus two clients that were there, and went into the only room with no windows. The roof blew off and all windows were shattered but we were okay. Destruction all over the neighbourhood with some demolished buildings. Plus my car got completely crushed in the parking lot by the neighbour`s roof!

 

[GAN]

Blizzard of 1978 in RI

Hands down. Up to 40" of snow ...our street wasn't dug out(there was too much to plow) until almost a week later. I remember we had a bad ice storm maybe 2-weeks before that and lost power for 4-5 days. So by mid-February we had already missed 2-weeks of school.

 

[chickapin parterre]

1996 oregon flood

 

[scrhsa]

Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. But back in 1983 we stayed during Hurricane Alicia and that was pretty harrowing. Blew our locked door open even with a heavy easy chair in front of it. Though we did come out of it with just some tree damage and needing a new roof.

 

[OhhBother]

Blizzard of 1993. We lived in Tennessee and got four feet of snow - which is unheard of that far south. I was a young reporter and had to go to work - they sent four-wheel drives to pick us up. I remember one lane of the road was open, and the snow was packed window high on both sides. It’s was like driving through a snow tunnel. Our house didn’t have power or water for five days.

We live at the beach now, so no more snowstorms. We’ve had a couple of Cat 1 hurricanes and a few tropical storms since we’ve been here, but overall we’ve been lucky.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Welcome to the dis, Channel.

 

[SM1992]

Blizzard of '78. Drove home from school in Boston to south shore just as the snow started. Had to walk about a mile to buy any food for the next week. Our street wasn't actually plowed, but had to be dug out by a front end loader 4 days later. Always regret not taking any photos back then.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Hurricane Hugo, Puerto Rico 1989. Slow moving cat 3 hurricane. Started early on a Sunday evening and didn't pass until mid-morning Monday. Very intense.

 

[floridafam]

Hurricanes Jeanne and Frances. We were in the process of moving from MI to Florida and were without power for a week each time. We didn’t know about getting in line for food/ice, etc. and hadn’t done a lot of preparing like we do now. DH had to stay in town to work but sent us to live at WDW each time.

My dad lived through an F5 tornado that moved through MI on April 3, 1956. It destroyed many homes, injured or killed people, and destroyed my grandpa’s business.