Have you ever experienced a disaster?

[VampiresDontSparkle]

For those who haven't heard, Queensland (Australia) is experiencing a flood 'crisis' right now. There have been 10 reported deaths so far, and 78 people are missing. Roads are blocked, and certain towns are completely isolated, both by road and air.

Due to the roads being blocked, my city is running out of food and essential items. After a four-hour drive to every supermarket and grocery store I know, I've found out there is no milk, bread, eggs, fruit, vegetables, etc, left on the shelves. Entire aisles are cleared out. People are joining huge lines in an effort to get petrol for their cars before it runs out.

I've never experienced this level of panic before, and I'm curious -- have any of you guys ever experienced a 'disaster'? (Whether it be natural or otherwise)

 

[Kyrian007]

Several tornados and the aftermath of destroyed homes. Also watched one of the world?s largest grain elevators explode. Seeing devestation on that scale sucks. But all you can do is pitch in and help clean up.

 

[Astoria]

The closest I've gotten to a disaster is a earth tremor last year so I'm insanely lucky though I've heard that there's suposed to be a large earthquake in Adelaide later this year so maybe that luck's about to run out. Hope everything turns out ok for you, those floods look scary

 

[Bernzz]

All I've experienced is a mild tremor in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. Nothing worse.

 

[TheHecatomb]

Had this yoghurt once that was several months overdue. But that's probably not what you mean.

 

[kalt_13]

going through the qld floods now so i guess this counts

 

[Folksoul]

Several forest fires that had city wide evacuations. My profile pic is of the largest of them.

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

Last week my town flooded... we got like 4 feet of rain in 12 hours, it was some crazy shit...

No reported deaths, but some guy tried to rob the liquor store in a canoe!

 

[Nunny]

Been through 2 Bushfires, though luckily only tracks of land were burnt.
First got stuck in Bluegum plantations and essentialy destroyed itself, the other was stalled long enough by changing wind directions to be stopped.

 

[Tenky]

Icestorm of '98 in Québec, basicly... no power in the middle of january... for a whole month!

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Nope, never had any problems here. I'm just lucky I guess.

 

[RicoADF]

For those who haven't heard, Queensland (Australia) is experiencing a flood 'crisis' right now. There have been 10 reported deaths so far, and 78 people are missing. Roads are blocked, and certain towns are completely isolated, both by road and air.

Due to the roads being blocked, my city is running out of food and essential items. After a four-hour drive to every supermarket and grocery store I know, I've found out there is no milk, bread, eggs, fruit, vegetables, etc, left on the shelves. Entire aisles are cleared out. People are joining huge lines in an effort to get petrol for their cars before it runs out.

I've never experienced this level of panic before, and I'm curious -- have any of you guys ever experienced a 'disaster'? (Whether it be natural or otherwise)

Sydney bushfires are the closest I've come to, they were just down the road, but life was mostly at normal just a case of being ready to evacuate incase.

Good luck mate, saw the disaster on the news, got a friend up there I haven't heard from in awhile, I hope it turns out for the best

 

[Herbivore]

There was this really bad hurricane once, in 1999 I think. But since this is in Denmark the hurricane was a bit pathetic compared to the stuff you get in the USA. I don't think there were any reported deaths, but some property was destroyed or damaged due to floods and the wind, and some roads were blocked by trees that had fallen over, can't really remember that much though, nothing happened to our house.

 

[fearofsleep]

well i live in China, and i luckily was away the day of that lather large earthquake a few years ago, that was the closest ive come to one

 

[VivaciousDeimos]

In 2008 the Midwest (US) flooded bigtime. My entire state was declared a disaster area.

Spoiler: This is what our downtown looked like:

Thankfully, the flooding didn't get high enough to flood our house, but my sister and one of my aunts both lost theirs. So when you talk about citywide panic, I understand what you mean. It's almost surreal how the mood of an entire city can be so palpable.

Floods, at least in my experience (we had another one in '93, not quite as bad though), are a sneaky sort of disaster; ours happened slowly, with the water continuing to climb higher and the rain continuing to fall. It's almost a sort of panic on low-broil until the shit hits the fan (or in this case: water hits the roads), that's when things started getting really bad. And now, three years later, we're still trying to recover.

So, from someone who's experienced it: please stay safe.

 

[purf]

Nah, biggest thing I've experienced was seeing the aftermath of Kyrill [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrill_%28storm%29] and what it had done to the forest where I'd played as a child. My perception of that storm was... well, "it's windy". Comparatively boring stuff...

 

[AvsJoe]

I was within a few kilometres of a hurricane and a tornado and was smack-dab in the middle of Blackout 2003, but I wouldn't classify any of those as a 'disaster'. So no, I guess.

 

[fenderstrat]

well, i'm living in qld right now, so yeah. the water's pretty high at the moment...

 

[Random berk]

I was stranded in the Cork floods with a friend and we ended up wading around the streets until 2 am when we took refuge in Mercy hospital, just before the river wall collapsed flooding that area of the city centre. Those floods were a huge scale disaster for Cork, though they were insignificant compared to what happened in India during the Summer, or down under just now. Best of luck to the OP, hope you all get through it alright, and that those missing people turn up alive.

Oh, I was also in Florida during hurricane Wilma. The damage where we were staying was on a similar scale to Cork, but it was dealt with efficiently, and even the worst of it was fixed quickly I expect. In Cork, they still haven't repaired the wall, and its been over a year.