Looking at the pictures of devastation in Oklahoma is just plain awful. The scarier thing is that all that destruction took only minutes. Nature does not mess around.
Years ago while in Florida for work, the day started out sunny and blue sky. It’s Florida. Weather forecast was the same as it always was, sunny with a chance for rain in the afternoon. This is the daily forecast from March to November. Literally. Every day. Unless there is a hurricane warning.
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon the sky turned green. Wizard of Oz scary green. The winds were picking up. A lot. Our office was on the 3rd floor of a small bank building. Huge windows around the whole thing. The winds started getting heavier and heavier and it started to rain. We saw a newspaper dispenser machine rolling down the sidewalk. Then the bank sign from the top of the building went flying by and landed in the parking lot. We all got away from the windows and the power went out. The building was literally shaking. Florida, not California – no earthquake. Just from the wind.
I called my Mom at work and she was fine. Called my brother’s school and there was no answer. My boss said we could all leave, no power anyway. I drove to my brother’s school and there were huge trees, oaks or some such not palm, all ripped up and seemingly thrown everywhere. In the street, etc. A huge one was across the entrance of my brother’s school but luckily everyone was safe and they were getting the kids out of there.
I got him and we went and got my mom from her job and went home. It took a while as power was out everywhere so no traffic lights and branches and trees were laying everywhere. No damage at my parent’s house luckily but no power or phones. We found a Denny’s several miles away that was running on their own generator and, along with I think every other person in town, got some dinner after a 3 hour wait (truly was THE only place with power.)
Our power came back on the next day. Of the surprise storm, the news said it was a freak storm (how can you NOT see that on your gajillion dollar radar storm tracking radar?!?!) that sprouted numerous tornadoes. They showed my office building on the news and they mentioned that corner as a spot one twister touched down. Wonderful.
Obviously it was NOWHERE near the strength and destructive power of the Oklahoma storms. But that scared me. You have no warning or prep. I have gone through 2 Cat 5 hurricanes, one in Mexico where I do not recommend being in a big storm, plus the big 1989 SF earthquake (I was at the World Series game for it…fun times.) None of those things freaked me out like that Florida storm. Tornadoes can just come out of nowhere and strike. Blow apart 1 house and leave the neighbor. Or wipe out neighborhoods. Sure you don’t get warnings with earthquakes either but there is also no such thing as earthquake season every year.
I was born in New York, lived in Illinois, and moved to Florida before moving out to California. Even though I was one, I say now you East Coasters and Mid Westerners are nuts. I’ll take the risk of an occasional earthquake any day.
