Cool, we were in the same quake together. Although I was just an toddler and up on the mountain itself. I think it’s my earliest memory, a shelf on a wall shaking.
Havng been in Tornados, Earthquakes, Blizzards and Floods, I’ll say that Tornados are by far the scariest. Easily the most destrutive on a isolated scale and totally unpredicable. Hurricanes would be scary is you didn;t have nearly a week’s notice. They are certainly devastating, but to pretend they are scary is retarded. If you’re afraid of riding one out, you have plenty of time to evac.
The simple concept of “riding one out” pretty much negates any fear factor to me. Even considering Katrina (which has been horrible but not especially unpredictable), the people who “rode it out” weren’t horrified. However, if you’ve ever sprinted downstairs as the house above you simply disappears, you’ll agree that Tornados are the scariest. Also are the most deadly of “unpredictable” kind.
Been hit by lightning twice.
Been blown away by tornado once in 74, others up close and personal.
Flooded 3 times to varying degrees.
Temporally trapped by fire twice, once inside and once outside.
No earth quakes yet.
No direct hit by a hurricane yet.
Sudden engine stoppage in aircraft many times.
Big storm in the open ocean while on sail boats…
Blizzards… check.
other stuff and such…
The worst is when you have to wait and there is nothing left to do, no action to try to take, you have done it all and now you just have to wait.
Sudden things are frightening, but fright is quick and right now, no warning to speak of.
Slow build ups and advance warning giving time for fear to build. Fear requires time, fright does not. So some of my most fearful times have been not the biggest or most deadly things, but the times I have run out of things to try and can’t escape and just have to wait…
Running out of things to try doesn’t happen often but when it did, then I had fear of the most terrible kind… Surviving those times makes me look at the world a bit different…
The most terrifying thing to me is man’s inhumanity to man. I see it coming and I see no way to stop it.
YMMV
I think it’s in Kingpin that Bill Murray and/or Woody Harrelson convince someone gullible that they have to get inside the house “because there’s a shitcloud coming”. That’s my number one.
The one I experienced was reported as a 7.9 or 8.1 depending on whose data you accept. It lasted for one minute and thirty-six seconds. I thought the world was coming to it’s end. Everyone in my family was in a different place. My kids in school, my wife running errands and me working. It wasn’t until several frantic hours later that we were able to rejoin. I was caught in a small tsunami as I made my way along the beach to get to the town across the bay.
Hurricane Isabel struck my home in 2000 and it was only a category 1 or 2 when it got this far inland, but it was still scary enough that I don’t want to go through it again. Watching 70 foot poplar trees falling like matchsticks all around your house (and even on your house and car) is no fun.
I’d say a that being on a beach and seeing a tidal wave coming at me would be the most terrifying natural event.
I’d say a major Earthquake would be the worst. You get at least some warning with most of the weather related things, and you can even hide from a tornado if it catches you by suprise. You can’t hide from an Earthquake. Best you can do is find something solid to get under so as not to have falling stuff hit you on the head.
Impotence.
Tornadoes scare the crap out of me. Too much *Wizard of Oz * as a kid, I guess. I don’t even wake up for earthquakes, and we don’t get hurricanes or blizzards in SoCal.
don’t ask…I feel your pain. Thank Og for little blue pills! 
In a house, a tornado. In a larger apartment building or office tower, an earthquake. Outdoors, a prairie or forest fire.
What was particularly horrifying about the devastating Kobe, Japan earthquake was that many residents survived being buried in rubble, only to burn to death as the natural gas released from broken mains filled the cavities of the ruined buildings.
Thing is, if you’re not used to them, they feel much, much longer.
F’rex, as a Seattleite, I was here for our 6.8 quake in Feb 2001. I’ve been in a few, so I recognized it pretty much immediately and knew it wasn’t going to be that bad. I got to the elevator core of the building (most stable location) and helped organize the exodus down the stairwells when it was over.
In the parking lot outside, people were saying, “How long was that? Four minutes? Five? Must have lasted three minutes at least. Probably four.”
I kept saying, “Nope, forty-five seconds, tops.”
Indignant responses: “Nuh-uh! No way that lasted less than two minutes. Had to be three or maybe four. That thing went on forever!” And so forth.
As it turns out, my initial estimate was bang on. So don’t underestimate the, um, fear factor. If you’ve never been in one, it’ll shock the hell out of you.
Re the OP, Fear Itself (heh) and Yumblie named it. There’s a decent chance we’ll have days or even weeks of notice if a comet or asteroid came tumbling into our gravity well, and there ain’t nuthin’ we could do about it. It’s the powerlessness that squeezes my nads.
Wildfires are pretty damn scary, but the thought of tsunamis is what really makes my brain seize up. In the face of a huge wall of water I’d be the proverbial deer in headlights.
An earthquake-generated tsunami that spawns a forest-fire-causing tornado that cracks open a massive dam that releases a thermonuclear Godzilla.
Now, THAT would be bad.
A thermonuclear Gozilla that shot bees out of it’s mouth.
And that’s what I fear most. Not the nature of the disaster, but panic in the streets as people try to run away from it. Luckily, as bad as it’s been in NOLA, it never became an all-out brawl.
lets see here, i’ve experienced;
Blizzards; (Blizz. of '76 and '78 were especially memorable), but as long as you’re prepared, and in a house, no biggie, wouldn’t want to be caught outside in one though…
Hurricanes; i’ve been lucky that hurricanes “Bob”('85) and “Gloria”('91) were no higher than Cat 2 when they made landfall, scarier than blizzards, but at least you have warning they’re coming and can prepare/evacuate
Earthquakes; scary due to the unpredictability, they just happen, admittedly, New England’s “earthquakes” pale compared to the real 'quakes over on the Pacific coast, i know our little tremblors would barely even be a blip on the radar of the Pacific Coasters
haven’t experienced tornados, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions, although we did get a tiny bit of ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption here in Maine
the scariest thing i’ve experienced was a field fire…
back when i was a wee MacTech (probably 6 years old or so), Dad and i were out mowing a walking/horse path in our field, (50 acres of land) it was in the height of summer and we were using the old Case 224 garden tractor to mow the path (well, he was driving, and i “helped” steer the tractor), the field was exeptionally dry, we got the right front tire caught in a rut, we backed up and steered around the rut
as we pulled forward, some mown dry grass built up on top of the right front tire, touching the exposed muffler assembly, it started to burn immediately, Dad backed away as fast as the tractor could go (roughly .00000002 MPH with a tailwind…), jumped off and tried to stomp the fire out
didn’t work, so we jumped back on board the tractor and hightailed it out of there as fast as the old horse could go (maybe 10 MPH, tops), i watched over Dad’s shoulder as the fire started tiny and expanded exponentially, the field rapidly being consumed by sheets of flame, somehow, thank Og, we were able to keep ahead of the fire, get to the house and call the fire department, i couldn’t help but watch in morbid fascination as the sheets of flame expanded outward, slowly, inexorably moving towards the house (200 year old Colonial that’s stood since the Revolutionary War)
i thought we were going to lose the house, and was starting to panic, until the York FD showed up and knocked the fire out in short order, all told, we probably had a burn of at least 15 acres, and i had never seen fire (well, sheets of fire really) move that quickly
i shudder just now thinking about it, at how bad it could have been…
so, i’d rank my experiences from least-to-most scary as;
Blizzards
“baby” Earthquakes
Hurricanes
Wildfires
The only ones I’ve encountered are a hurricane, massive flooding from a tropical storm, and tornadoes. I’ve been through blizzards, but I hardly thing of those as a disaster.
The hurricane was the worst; it went on forever, made a lot of noise, had the bayou threatening to overtop its banks, and other nasty stuff.
The tornado was no biggy. We just went down to the basement and it missed us (although it uprooted huge trees nearby, and the hail really messed up the siding on the house).
I was afraid the flooding would trash the house, but I was never in fear for my life.
So much for what I’ve been through. What scares me the most is being burnt, so a forest fire that I couldn’t easily dodge would be about the scariest thing to me.
Of the more common disasters, I’d rate fire and tsunami to be the scariest. For the less common, I nominate a nearby supernova. If it’s close enough, it’ll sterilize the entire planet with radiation. Not only do you die slowly, but you get to contemplate the fact that everyone and everything, everywhere is dying.
Being overrun by a swarm of army or driver ants.
For me, the blizzard wins hands down. It’s one thing to be in a town, snug in a house, with neighbors nearby during a blizzard. It’s quite another to be in a wood stove heated house seven miles from town and two miles from the nearest neighbor.
Tornadoes rank second; hurricanes third, and earthquakes fourth. I’ve never given fires much thought and I would like to keep it that way.