Disaster event(s) that made you say "Hhhhmmm ....."

[jbett98]

The great Columbus Day storm. Great fun as a kid, but wouldn't want to go through that again now.

 

[The Heretic]

covid 19 has made me go HMMMMMMM.


not the virus, the hype and mandates.

The response of the public - the panic buying especially. As I have said before, this was a rehearsal. Indeed, the last 3-4 years has been a rehearsal for me; my heart problems, falling into the slash pile coals and getting burned, the pandemic, the economy tanking, getting laid off, the riots, the wildfire.

 

[GrayGoose]

The response of the public - the panic buying especially. As I have said before, this was a rehearsal. Indeed, the last 3-4 years has been a rehearsal for me; my heart problems, falling into the slash pile coals and getting burned, the pandemic, the economy tanking, getting laid off, the riots, the wildfire.

All the government control and the response of the masses over this past year has made me think a lot about what might happen when a real pandemic hits.

 

[The Heretic]

All the government control and the response of the masses over this past year has made me think a lot about what might happen when a real pandemic hits.

I think it opened a lot of eyes with regards to preps, supply and resupply issues, and just how vulnerable we are in general, and that is a good thing IMO.

 

[Cavedweller]

Was living in Manila in the late '80s when elements of the Philippine military attempted a coup against the government of Corazon Aquino. One night rebel troops (Philippine Marines) left their base and marched down a road near my home on their way to occupy the financial district. They ran into a loyalist (Army) roadblock at an intersection about 100 yards away, and a firefight began. We were awakened about midnight by the sound of small arms and automatic weapons fire. When the first grenade went off I got the wife and kids out of bed and hustled them downstairs, lest something come through the roof. Had them lay down on the living room floor and sat on the sofa wondering what I was going to do if they came through the front door. The next day a neighbor showed me a .50 cal round that had come through his front room window. I resolved to never again be without the means of self-defense.

 

[pdempsey1097]

Lima Prieta earthquake in Silicon Valley in 1989.
Snow/ice storm in the Central Sierra Nevada that resulted in no power for a week in the middle of a snowy winter.

We were lucky both times.
People died in the Loma Prieta quake. I rode it out in a data center.

We were pretty well prepared for the storms - wood stove, LOTS of firewood that we had spent moths cutting, propane water heater and cook stove, and snow for refrigeration.

we had friends who moved into a motel the first night.

Both definitely reinforced my resolve to prep.

 

[GWS]

Lima Prieta earthquake in Silicon Valley in 1989.
Snow/ice storm in the Central Sierra Nevada that resulted in no power for a week in the middle of a snowy winter.

We were lucky both times.
People died in the Loma Prieta quake. I rode it out in a data center.

We were pretty well prepared for the storms - wood stove, LOTS of firewood that we had spent moths cutting, propane water heater and cook stove, and snow for refrigeration.

we had friends who moved into a motel the first night.

Both definitely reinforced my resolve to prep.

Yep
I lived in San Jose then. I was just getting settled in for the World Series game between Oakland and LA when it hit. Building swaying, TV fell off the stand and was bouncing on the floor which made me decide to GTH out. The door was stuck till the third yank and then out onto the lawn. Neighbor was standing out there with me in his tighty whiteys. When the first big shocks subsided we both ran back inside. I grabbed a radio and a bottle of Jack. Neighbor grabbed clothes and dressed on the lawn. As the evening progressed it sort of turned onto a block party with everyone outdoors listening to radios, eating and riding out aftershocks. We were out of power for 2 days but our phones (landlines) were back up by 10PM.
We were all back inside by midnight

 

[Kid@Heart]

Columbus Day Storm was really something. (Typhoon Freda)
Highest wind gust of 170 MPH at the Oregon coast and 100 MPH in Renton.

Made a mess.

 

[revjen45]

Personal type disaster:
08/31/2016 Just after 0100 woke up with bad heartburn, which got worse fast. Asked The Beloved to call 911 as pain increased and I couldn't breathe. EMS arrived most rikki-tik and got to work. Right after they got me into the aid unit I went into total cardiac and respiratory arrest*. When the ambulance stops on the way out, it ain't a good sign. On the 5th try with the defibrillator (2 min. between attempts) heartbeat was restored, and we set off for Providence. I was unconscious on arrival. My wife told me the electrocardiologist said to just push my gurney out of the way because there was no use trying. While that was happening the head surgeon assembled his team and they saved me. As far as how it affected life in general - it affected every aspect of it in terms of lifestyle, diet, etc.
The medical folks let us know in no uncertain terms that if I didn't change my ways it would happen again, and that would be fatal.
Also, when we moved into this house we planned to move elsewhere. Affects of the heart attack made moving impractical, so here we are.
* I have spoken with the EMTs who literally brought me back from dead and even got a EKG printout of my own death @ 01:24:03. If they hadn't succeeded time of death would have been @ loss of heartbeat.

On the News at 11 type disaster:
The Greater Los Angeles County Inter-Ethnic May Festival 0f 1992, aka the Rodney King Riots. We were in the process of GFOD at the time, so I guess we reacted preemptively.

 

[The Heretic]

Yep
I lived in San Jose then. I was just getting settled in for the World Series game between Oakland and LA when it hit. Building swaying, TV fell off the stand and was bouncing on the floor which made me decide to GTH out. The door was stuck till the third yank and then out onto the lawn. Neighbor was standing out there with me in his tighty whiteys. When the first big shocks subsided we both ran back inside. I grabbed a radio and a bottle of Jack. Neighbor grabbed clothes and dressed on the lawn. As the evening progressed it sort of turned onto a block party with everyone outdoors listening to radios, eating and riding out aftershocks. We were out of power for 2 days but our phones (landlines) were back up by 10PM.
We were all back inside by midnight

My older brother was in his Oakland office when that hit, he was just going out the door to go home when it hit. If he had left a few minutes earlier he would have been on that part of the highway that pancaked.

 

[Ura-Ki]

The events of Katrina made me a true believer in proper prepping, having seen what can happen up close and personal to so many people so fast, I vowed to never get caught flat footed!

 

[The Heretic]

Sitting here in the dark. Power is out. Looks like it has been out for some hours as almost all of my automatic emergency standby lighting has exhausted its batteries.

My second day on my new contract gig and I can't do any work without power. Not a good start. Power is supposed to come back in an hour.

I had a power outage about a week ago and it fried my expensive 30" monitor. Fortunately I have plenty of spares.

I should have got a UPS years ago (my old one stopped working). I had been shopping for one since last week, and as usual I procrastinated - was going to order one yesterday. Ordered two this morning (one for the computers, one for the monitors which take a lot more power).

Typing this on my laptop using my phone as a hotspot, and using the laptop to charge the phone.

I have a doc appt. in 90 minutes - going to take the chance that power is still on in the city - probably is. Apparently we had a bit of rain (1.3" since midnight) and wind last night - I didn't notice because I am half deaf, I was asleep (I took two Robaxin and one Tylenol PM because I was having muscle spasms) and my house is well insulated. Looking at the outage map, the reported outages are wide geographically, but seem to be sparse with not that many people affected (a few thousand) - nothing on the news sites about this.

Makes me think about what would happen if we had a Cascadia earthquake of significant power. Hoping to get Starlink soon - the long distance wifi would go out with wide power outages, and it is very slow anyway. With satellite internet I could still use the internet even if the whole west coast was affected (their base stations are dispersed with some outside the west coast) - assuming the internet was still up altogether.

 

[GWS]

My older brother was in his Oakland office when that hit, he was just going out the door to go home when it hit. If he had left a few minutes earlier he would have been on that part of the highway that pancaked.

Yeah! The Highway 17 (Actually, the Cypress freeway) viaduct was 2 level with southbound on the upper deck and northbound on the lower. It was kind of a lucky break that the World Series was playing that day because so many people left work early to get home for the game.
A lot of people would have died on the viaduct on a normal workday with some engineers claiming the weight of all the cars normally on the road at that time of day may have been too much and the structure could have collapsed all the way to the ground.
In a typical "Ya gotta love Oakland" moment one of the local gentry of that area went into the lower deck area and pulled people to safety.\
Then stole their wallets

And in typical "Ya gotta love California" style It took the state something like 15 years to finally reopen that route.

 

[The Heretic]

Cousin just moved to Alameda back from being stationed in Australia.

In laws drove there in late model pickup to drop off stuff they had stored while in Australia.

Being so close Oakland, of course the pickup was stolen, vandalized, drug paraphernalia left inside when found.

 

[AllDayRay]

A storm in the Pacific on 30 Nov 2020, caused MV ONE APUS to roll enough to lose approximately 2,000 shipping containers over the side. This ship was heading to Long Beach California, but instead of finishing its journey it turned around and headed to Tokyo. Apparently Armored Republic had millions worth of product aboard and still to this day they do not know if the containers with there product went over or not. At roughly the same time another storm in the Gulf of Mexico delayed shipments of petroleum used in the production of there FragLock coating. An order with a 6 week lead time in November has just turned into a 20 week minimum lead time. At this rate body armor will be outlawed by the time it's supposed to be here. So if you are waiting on armor from AR500, keep waiting i suppose. Things that make you go Hmmmmm.....

 

[Kid@Heart]

Now that I have had a chance to think about it a bit,

A "Disaster" that made me go Hmmm...

Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to blow up a dead whale on the beach?

 

[BigDog67]

As a former demolition specialist I personally think blowing LOTS of things up is a grand idea.

 

[Catfishmoon]

Society used to take safety more casually.. I can't count all the times myself and other neighborhood children would be placed in the back of pickup trucks for trips to another town for swimming lessons, etc.

 

[BigDog67]

Or sat on the tailgate hanging our feet down as we went down the road.

 

[jdub75]

The 2011 japan earthquake and tsunamis really struck me deep for some reason. I woke up on my couch in the middle of the night to the live broadcasts of the tsunami engulfing homes and occupied vehicles.