Friday Five: Natural Disasters

This morning is my annual cancer checkup with my oncologist. Always a good time. I have now been cancer-free for 19 years! Woohoo!!


Friday Five

1. What natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones, floods, landslides, etc) is your area prone to?
tornadoes, wildfires, floods

2. What natural disasters have you experienced firsthand?
Biggest one- Tropical Storm Claudette flood in Houston in 1979. 43 inches of rain in 24 hours. We had knee-deep water in our house and were rescued by boat.

My dad's friend Bill, as the water recedes. It had crested just over the tops of cars in the street.

Dad (omg those white shorts! ahahaha!) and Bill (who would die if he saw this today, I'm sure).
Water finally out of the houses. There was a lot of beer being consumed that day.

 

Wanna know what ants do in floods? THIS. They float in clumps until they
hit something and then they swarm onto it. Don't let them find your leg.
Incidentally, snakes swim around in the water. That's why there are no
pictures of me wading around, posing with a refreshing beverage.

All our stuff coming out of the house to dry, including the carpets,
which ended up having to be tossed anyway.

I was also hunkered down at home through several huge hurricanes. The worst one was Alicia in 1983. (We were in the League City house then.) Our whole fence and a couple of trees blew down, along with damage to our roof, etc. Two friends and I had a three-way conference call going during the worst part of it. We were laughing and chatting about the storm and other regular stuff. My mom kept trying to get me to get off the phone, but I wasn't about to put it down. I would have been terrified! I'm surprised the phones kept working.

And finally, from my great-aunt's front screen door, I watched a smallish tornado come down the street at her house in Wisconsin. It was very surreal seeing it approaching so close. Before it got right up to the house, I rejoined my extended family, who were having fun playing cards while sheltering in the basement, because it happens so often there. I thought they were nuts. That tornado passed us by, about 100 feet away in the street.

3. Have you ever been evacuated due to a natural disaster?
The Flood. We had to leave my cat, Mickey, in the flooded house. Poor baby. We were at a Red Cross Shelter for several hours, and that was the hardest time, because I was upset and hot and totally drenched from wading out to the boat. Vivid memory. My heart always goes out particularly to flood victims when they are on the news. Been there; relived it a thousand times in my head.

4. Have you made/do you make any special preparations in case of natural disaster where you live?
If there is a tornado nearby, which there hasn't been, we have indoor spaces safe for sheltering. Also, I have drinking water stocked in the garage.

5. What type of natural disaster scares you the most? 
earthquake!