What is the worst disaster to ever strike where you live?

[A_Parked_Car]

Hey Escapists,

I'm wondering what is the worst disaster to ever strike where you live? It can be natural or man-made.

I have asked this because I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Right now the whole of southern Alberta is experiencing serious flooding. This is certainly the worst disaster that has ever hit where I live. Luckily there seem to be very few fatalities, though the flooding has caused a lot of damage and displaced tens of thousands of people.

http://bizboxtv.com/calgary-flooding-2013-flood-pictures-video/

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-confirmed-dead-in-alberta-flooding-calgary-s-downtown-evacuated-1.1335330

 

[Amethyst Wind]

The I.R.A. bombed my town. Not much besides that. We're in a pretty stable area in terms of geography.

 

[Sassafrass]

The area where I live right now?
Er...we had someone set fire to a car in the library car park once? That's about it, really.

Although the places I used to live have been quite exciting for lack of a better term, mostly because of human error instead of geographical disasters.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Wildfires, earthquakes, riots, not really sure what's the worst.

Wildfires are the most frequent, big earthquakes do the most damage, and riots are the scariest. Take your pick.

 

[shrekfan246]

Ice storms.

Specifically within my lifetime, the ice storm of 1998.

But I lived in the city and we were hit probably the softest out of most areas impacted, so it didn't really affect me all that much. If I'd been living up in Fairfield like I was when I went into high school, then...

Other than that, nothing much happens in Vermont. We get the occasional light forest fire, the occasional small tornado, the occasional small flood, the occasional earthquake (I think there've been two in my lifetime), but snow, ice, and how they mess the roads are pretty much what you have to pay the most attention to around here.

 

[Quaxar]

Yeah, serious flooding here too. We had about 50cm to spare on the maximum height of the regular stage of the relief channel and some minor water in the lowest parts of the leisure island. Shit was going down.
What? Not our fault the city invested huge sums in water regulation and flood prevention decades ago while every few years people get their homes flooded because they built in well-known flood regions that didn't really do anything until very recently.

Of course there was worse stuff if you want to go into history. We had the Turks unsuccessfully siege the city twice, but I'm guessing you meant somewhat recently.

 

[Stasisesque]

Well, there was that big fire a few years ago. A few years ago as in the Great Fire of London. Aside from that, it's really just terrorist attacks we have to worry about. "Just".

Unless the Thames Barrier fails and the world goes Day After Tomorrow.

 

[Veylon]

The worst thing to happen in my neck of the woods was the Great Hinckley Fire of 1918:

In my own lifetime, it was probably the terrible flood we had about this time last year:

The following picture was taken a few blocks from my house:

No, I wasn't flooded out, so I don't need any sympathy.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Hey! Escapist from Calgary ahoy!

I'm originally from Almaty, Kazakhstan, and biggest disaster happened in 1911. Almost 8.0 earthquake basically eradicated whole city with sole exception of one church (SYMBOLISM!)
As for my lifetime we had a couple of earthquakes, nothing serious 4.0 max, and a couple of floods.

<img src=http://www.kazakhstandiscovery.com/images/Alma-ata_earthquake_1911_240.jpg>
<img src=http://www.kazakhstandiscovery.com/images/Alma-ata_Zenkov_240.jpg>

 

[Little Woodsman]

We now seem to have forest fires every summer, blizzards severe enough to shut everything down happen occasionally,
we've had a historic flood & a tornado touched down within sight of downtown once....
but the worst one has *got* to be politicians.

 

[piinyouri]

Not sure what the worst thing here is, as far as all of the towns history.
Since you only said disaster and not natural disasters I'm going to guess the worst the towns probably ever been through was a girl being killed back in the 1910-11.

As far as for me, the worst thing I've endured was the straight line wind storm a few years back.
Knocked out our power for 2 weeks in the middle of summer, pushed over several very very large trees, the town was an absolute wreck, but thankfully no one died.

 

[Marter]

Oh, hey. I'm also from Calgary. This flooding has to be the worst thing here. It's certainly the worst I've experienced, anyway.

 

[Ace O'Hagen]

I'm watching the CBC right now, they're showing the Stampede Grounds under water and the Saddledome under water up to row 14 ... in Lethbridge, close to where I live, they're looking at half of the city getting cut off due to water impacting the bridges on the Oldman River and Medicine Hat, downstream of both Calgary and Lethbridge, they're not even planning to sandbag homes and businesses due to the expected water levels, only critical infrastructure

I've never seen flooding this bad in Alberta

this is the water coming off the Oldman Dam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNiL8iIG5to

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

Lake Bonneville draining. Sure it happened millions of years before humans ever came anywhere close to living in the Salt Lake valley; but gosh dern was it a biggun.

 

[Korolev]

In 2011 Brisbane had some very serious floods. It was the worst disaster in my memory, although I think we've had other disasters and bushfires near Brisbane that may have claimed more lives. In general, Brisbane doesn't get many disasters. No Earthquakes, Cyclones are very, very infrequent, and not even that many storms (although lately we've been having far too much rain).

 

[San Martin]

I don't know what the worst disaster would be, but a couple of months ago a few people died in Buenos Aires during a flood. Nearby, in the city of La Plata, I think about fifty people lost their lives. It was quite surprising if you consider that the region is entirely flat, but it seems the government hadn't wanted to shell out for flood defenses, and the water had nowhere to go since everything's lined with concrete.

 

[FalloutJack]

The worst disaster in Pittsburgh wasn't in my lifetime, but when my father was a young. Can't remember the date, but I do know that it was a flood that effectively engulfed the first floor of many downtown buildings when the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the Monongahella Rivers swelled out of their confines. There's a marker on a building at the corner of Stanwix and Penn declaring the water's height from the ground, which is taller than I stand. And if that's downtown, what about the rest of the rivers?

 

[Dangit2019]

Uh...not much apparently. We're (College Station, TX) nowhere close to the shore, far from earthquake territory, and just below the Tornado Alley region.

However, we are semi-famous for our simulated disasters in Disaster City, a disaster response facility notorious for it's highly realistic disaster simulations.. We bring firefighters and policeman from all around the world here.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

Was born on the gulf coast in the northwest panhandle of Florida...were were struck with bad hurricanes and tropical storms every 5-6 years. I moved to Central Florida along the Atlantic just as this area was struck with back-to-back hurricanes. So yea, we get a lot of them..even 'minor' hurricanes/tropical storms do things like this-

This was my neighborhood after two days of constant downpour.


As for other disasters- apparently the Atlantic coast of Florida is (according to signs you can see on the beach) a Tsunami zone. This is brushed off as having slim to no chance of happening, but if the volcano in the Canary Islands were to blow its top and part of it fall into the ocean then a Tsunami would occur. The Caribbean has fault lines with many earthquakes and Tsunamis occurring throughout the centuries (Haiti being a more recent and tragic reminder)... but the likelihood of any activity in the Caribbean plates affecting us is even slimmer than my town being hit by the aforementioned scenario.

 

[Groxnax]

I am living in Calgary as well and this is the worst flooding I have seen in this city as well, I'm glad I live away from the river in a higher area.

But yeah, I've seen the pictures of the flood areas and I hope they dry up soon.