# What's the closest you've been to an "Act of God" weather event? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 5, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435 "2013-10-05T14:27:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/1 "2013-10-05T14:27:48Z")
It’s been obvious in the past year or so that some of our Doper friends have been close to tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and other frightening and damaging phenomena. I’m curious about who’s had the closest call and when that would have been. In my own case, a tornado knocked down trees in my yard and in the neighbors’ yards back in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Next closest would have been the flood of 2010, but the damaging parts of it stayed miles away from my place. I had a lightning strike in the yard – took out a tree – a few years back. There have even been threads devoted to major disasters, mostly tornados and bad storms, where “roll calls” have gone up to be sure folks were okay. I know we have some folks in Iowa, and the news about the tornados there made me curious enough to start this thread. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/2 "2013-10-05T14:36:00Z")
I’ve been about a half mile away from tornadoes twice in my life. I was far enough from both to type these words today. One tornado was smallish, and one was huge. > **[1990 Plainfield tornado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Plainfield_tornado)** > > The 1990 Plainfield tornado was a devastating tornado that occurred on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 28, 1990. The violent tornado killed 29 people and injured 353. It is the only F5/EF5 rated tornado ever recorded in August in the United States, and the only F5 tornado to strike the Chicago area. There are no known videos or photographs of the tornado itself; however, in 2011, a video surfaced online showing the supercell that spawned the tornado. The Plainfield tornado was part o For late Au... ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/3 "2013-10-05T18:08:55Z")
Somehow avoided a number of tornadoes, including [this big, long-lasting one](http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ind/?n=sept20_2002tor) that passed a few yards from where I was sleeping. Awoke to a frantic friend’s phone calls, asking “Are you okay?!” “Umm… yeah, why?” “Look out the window!” Flipped cars in my apartment complex, downed power poles, etc. If you click on the “Greenwood” damage pictures, you can see a few pics from nearby my job; the third picture in that series, the completely demolished building, was a large shoe store. My friend and I had plans to go dancing that night, so we headed out anyway (and the dancing was great!). Driving past that shoe store was weird; the highway was filled with rain-soaked shoes and shoe boxes. And to this day, if you drive through the affected neighborhoods, you can track the path of the storm by the odd lack of tall trees in what are otherwise green landscapes filled with tall, old trees. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/4 "2013-10-05T18:20:35Z")
I was in Seattle (Redmond, specifically) during the [2001 Nisqually earthquake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Nisqually_earthquake). I was about 35 miles away from the epicenter, as the crow flies. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/5 "2013-10-05T18:29:13Z")
Direct hit by tornado June of 1974, Tulsa OK. Me I my two small children, one actually about 13 months old, survived in a closet. Almost total destruction, brick bullets through rock walls, etc. I have been hit by lightning twice in my life, 1957 & 1977. Flooded out in 1967. Burned out in 1971. Freak weather as a pilot, = many different types of degree & terror. Had a lightning strike so close & powerful the EMP fried electronics that were not even plugged in. If you include random violence from crazy people as acts of God, I got more… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/6 "2013-10-05T19:14:24Z")
I was in South Florida during Hurricane Andrew. No damage except for tree limbs torn off as well as shingles ripped off the house. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/7 "2013-10-05T19:31:51Z")
I was out on my deck in south Minneapolis sometime in the '80s when a tornado passed directly overhead after having mown a path through Lakewood Cemetery, on its way to touching down a block north of my house, then at Chicago and Lake (spewing footwear from Robert’s Shoes across the intersection), and eventually at the Har Mar Mall, where it damaged a Best Buy store. Fortunately, I was able to slip into the house through a sliding patio door before I got impaled by tree branches. My brother was in the basement trying to get back up to the apartment—there was no inside access—and was unable to open the standard hinged door because of the wind. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/8 "2013-10-05T19:44:35Z")
I was on a US Navy ship in the Gulf of Alaska on the way to Adak Island standing lookout watch with one other lookout and the OOD when we got hit with a wave so big it knocked us over 57 degree’s plus. I was the starboard lookout and I reached out as if I was falling down and I could’ve touched the lull of the water as the wave crashed over us. The weather report said that it was a force nine wind … it knocked the radio antenna off of it’s mount and swung towards the bow or it would’ve cut our heads off. ---
**Author:** ![fuchsiagroan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9de0a6/32.png) [@fuchsiagroan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuchsiagroan)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/9 "2013-10-05T19:48:53Z")
I live in Florida so hurricanes and a lot of tropical storms. Mostly trees in the yard and power outages in central Fla. Neighboring towns were hit pretty hard by tornadoes in recent years. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/10 "2013-10-05T19:51:38Z")
I got front row seats to the [Night of the Twisters](http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/gid/Events/GI1980/gipath2.jpg). I was where #'s 4,5,6 and 7 converge. Interestingly, several of the tornadoes rotated clockwise. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/11 "2013-10-05T20:05:25Z")
Being out on the flight-line on the wing of a buff and watching lightning hit the next plane over, killing a good friend of mine. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/12 "2013-10-05T20:33:47Z")
Completely second-hand, but I just spent a couple of hours with a woman who was five years old when the Great Hurricane of 1938 destroyed Long Island and Connecticut. She and her then-three year old brother still remember huge trees going over and then blowing away; she said it was the only time she ever saw her father frightened. I was in a situation in North Dakota where the clouds got low and gray and kept forming bubbles and points on the bottom. My uncle, about as hard-rock as Scandanavian farmers get, had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. My SIL asked him, “Are we in any danger?” and it took him a minute or so to get out, “Might be.” \*Then \*I was scared. Nothing happened, but that was a summer big tornadoes devastated the area. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/13 "2013-10-05T21:01:47Z")
When I was visiting an outdoor festival in Germany there was a huge lightning strike that killed 2 and injured 13. My family and I were about 10 feet away and saw the whole thing. And I was in the San Francisco earthquake of 1989. I just remember standing there wondering if the building would collapse and knowing that there was nothing I could do about it. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/14 "2013-10-05T21:15:47Z")
This wasn’t recent, but I was affected by the Ice Storm of 1998 here in Montreal. We had no electricity for a long time and had to go to a shelter. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/15 "2013-10-05T21:54:30Z")
A couple floods, the worst one filled my basement to the ceiling. I was about a half mile from a tornado touchdown that involved fatalities and didn’t realize it was happening. Didn’t notice anything other than extremely dark cloud cover. Big ice storm that knocked out power for several days in mid winter with temps dropping to around 20F. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/16 "2013-10-06T00:05:35Z")
**1996** Hurricane Fran chewed up my region, hundreds of miles inland. Listened to stuff thud into the house all night, heard trees crashing down, electrical explosions. In the morning the world looked like it had been through a blender and there was an enormous tree down in our back yard. Hundreds of homes were severely damaged, wikipedia says 22 direct fatalities. **2002** severe ice storm. Thousands of trees are toppled, one onto our house, though did not break through the roof, just stayed there for weeks until we could find someone who could deal with it. Without power in the freezing temperatures for a week. Husband stayed at work and me and kids went to stay w/ in-laws in DC until power restored. **2006** direct lightning strike to house, starting a fire. Later we found bricks blown 40 feet off the back of the house. That’s all I can think of. I think that’s enough. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/17 "2013-10-06T00:18:39Z")
I used to live in a coastal village that got flooded repeatedly, there were probably four major floods, and a couple of minor ones, in the 20 years I lived there. Our house was up on a small hill, so we were safe from the waters directly, but were surrounded on all sides by flooded roads almost like a moat, isolating us. However the waters would subside quite quickly, the longest they’d last is a couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/18 "2013-10-06T00:19:17Z")
Here in the FL panhandle we’ve been through some hurricanes, but Ivan was the real deal. All night long the wind roared and there were various sounds like nails screeching out of wood. Intermittent lulls in which we took flashlighted bathroom breaks. At one point I thought the heavy front door was going to give and wondered if we’d all be sucked outside. The next day, there was so much destruction and debris we could hardly recognize the street. Everybody’s roofs were gone (later to become a sea of FEMA blue.) The ceiling in one of our bedrooms fell, there was so much water. Nobody could get in or out of the city for days; the interstates had buckled and split and a truck driver drowned when the bridge broke into and the dangling cab of his rig fell into the bay. (Yes, there were people who went through this stuck in traffic, trying to get out.) The military set up in schoolyards, passing out bottled water and MREs. Everybody was calm, like we were walking through a dream. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/19 "2013-10-06T00:32:57Z")
Easiest way to say it: I’ve never been in a wildfire or seen lava up close. Only very small earthquakes, although one did mess up the plumbing in the house I was renting. Best story: After hiding out in the downstairs hallway with my co-workers during a tornado-filled thunderstorm, I finally got out to go home when the Tornado Warning was lifted. The rain had stopped, and I had the sunroof open. So many tornadoes had already come through that the smell of raw wood made Annandale Virginia feel like a cheap lumber yard. About 2 miles from home I heard something like a freight train or an out-of-control semi rattling crazily and coming up behind me fast. I couldn’t see any cause in the rearview mirror, but pulled over to the side anyway. Good thing I did, because a second later the car was filled with whipping leaves, twigs, etc. My eyes were shut tight, and I couldn’t move my head because the wind had lifted my hair and it was stuck in the gears of the sunroof. Seconds later I peered forward through squinty eyes and watched the tippy tail of a sky tornado zip down, snatch the top off a large oak tree and then whoosh back up into the sky again. For years I used to visit that tree and watch as it healed and filled in from an upside-down-umbrella back into a beautiful and balanced cushion shape. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435/20 "2013-10-06T00:55:50Z")
My thing is avoiding disasters. On 3 occasions, hurricanes headed towrds me and then veered off 90 degrees and destroyed a neighboring city. Twice, tsunamis lost power just before reaching me. I met a girl who is the opposite. When she leaves an area, the place gets destroyed a month later. I beleive it was Sandy or Katrina she narrowly avoided. When she and i were in the same area, it rained for 40 days straight, the longest such rainstorm in the areas history. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-closest-youve-been-to-an-act-of-god-weather-event/670435.md?page=2)