You May Have Lived in the Midwest Too Long...

Updated on September 07, 2012
J.W. asks from Saint Louis, MO
16 answers

When the wind is bending your 50 ft pines to strange angles and you are standing in your backyard looking for wall clouds....

I have tree damage and no tornado watch. I feel conflicted....

So just throwing this out there is there something dangerous in your area that you just don't freak out about anymore?

My uncle used to crack me up with his stories of living in San Francisco, apparently earthquakes don't bother him....but our tornadoes do. Allrighty then!

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So What Happened?

And now it has pretty much passed...then again there appears to be more forming. I hate them at night, during the day they don't bother me at all.

More Answers

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R.J.

answers from Seattle on

ROFL... no doubt!

As long as I'm not in a brick building (or on a bridge), I actually enjoy earth quakes. All of mine have been mild (7 or under) except 1... and I was a kid at that point and no one I loved died, so I'm a lot more casual about them than, say, those were were adults in 89, or lost people they loved.

LOVE monsoons. :) :) :)

Dated a stormchaser for awhile / actually drove around LOOKING for the funnels. Again. I was pretty immortal at that age, so my respect isn't what it should be for serious wind.

Was a rescue swimmer. I don't trust being on boats... but I have no problem flying into hell to get people OUT of the drink once their boat has dumped them in. God, I love love love big swells. It's like flying. Takes some patience, though to get 10 feet as the crow flies, when you're dropping and rising 30-40.

Worked the emergency disaster thing for awhile. To me, even 10 years later, I see devastation and have to keep my hand away from the phone. The hardest was the tsunami in Thailand. That was the first big one after becoming mom, and the whole helo'ing into crazy storms and driving through feet of water (or boating / debris jumping) is something of a no-no.

Okay. I think I may have just realized I'm a freak.

_______

I CANNOT handle aligators and crocodiles, though. All y'all who live in the South are certifiable maniacs.

3 moms found this helpful

L.B.

answers from Biloxi on

Hurricanes, J., Hurricanes.
Spent all my life with them.
While I respect the big ones, and prepare, or evacuate, accordingly, there is just not a darn thing I can do about them.

Tornadoes - scare the heck outta' me. Give me a Hurricane any day that I can see coming and have days to prepare for. Not a crazy wind funnel that swoops in with no warning.

You know, you are weird, right - outside looking for wall clouds. Bwahaha

3 moms found this helpful
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S.H.

answers from St. Louis on

......when on random days your vehicle looks like a mudball. It's those danged backroads & creek crossings which will get you every time!

.....when it's okay to see a fishing pole in a gun rack in a pickup truck.

....when school knows that the 1st day of each hunting season means low attendance.

.....when you travel with life jackets, coolers, & chairs 24/7 in the back of your vehicle. Love living by the Lake of the Ozarks!

.....when your best friend is a drink koozy, & it stays out all the time.

.....& in honor of your storm story....when you see StormChasers on Hwy 44 & you follow them! OMG...yes, we do. :) After living thru 3 tornados in <15 years, you'd think I'd be running the other way!

3 moms found this helpful

☼.S.

answers from Los Angeles on

Yeah, earthquakes. We've had a couple small ones over the last few weeks. Hey, we just rock and roll through 'em. I imagine the 'big one' will change my perspective at some point. I don't know how ya'll deal w/ several tornadoes and hurricanes on a yearly basis, though! Like I said, though, perspective.

2 moms found this helpful

~.~.

answers from Tulsa on

The only time I get nervous about tornadoes is when I am out driving in an unfamiliar area. If I'm at home, I'm excited! I have a square mile field across the street behind my house. Great for watching clouds and lightning. My sister however FREAKS during storms. It really gives a mixed message to my son. :) If storm chasing wasn't so expensive, I'd go on the trips every spring!

I finally felt a decent earthquake here last year. 5.4, I think. I had missed all kinds of earlier ones. Out driving or sleeping. We also had tornadoes going on while the earthquake was happening. The Quakenado state, that's Oklahoma!

1 mom found this helpful

C.C.

answers from San Francisco on

It's actually pretty cool to be in a high rise during an earthquake. People who aren't from California absolutely FREAK about it, but we have good building codes here, and the buildings are meant to move a good 5-10 feet at the top without any damage at all. I remember being in my office on the 36th floor during a decent-sized earthquake (I mean, it was a 4.5 or something - not huge) and only realizing it because I realized I was looking down and seeing the middle of Market Street below, when normally I would look down and see the sidewalk. LOL

Tornadoes scare the daylights out of me.

1 mom found this helpful
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A.V.

answers from Washington DC on

We are getting earthquakes now and the freak out part is in part because we aren't built for it.

If I had to pick anything, it would be power outages. They royally tick me off, but we're prepared for them now, because PEPCO sucks rotten eggs and then they review themselves, give themselves an A+ and ask for more money. I hate them. Everybody has a generator here now because you never know on which SUNNY DAY the power will go out. And a storm? Don't get me started. It's dangerous because trees go down, food spoils, and vulnerable people get hurt or die.

I spent my 7th birthday in the basement in MN and the summer I was 10 a twister played around in a field across from my house. I NEVER got used to severe storms.

1 mom found this helpful
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R.K.

answers from Boston on

Hurricane winds and waves. My Mom delighted in them and I've always had a "healthy" fascination with rain and surf. Love to go to the ocean as soon as it's safe. And I love a good thunderstorm. Of course, this is from a person who spent last week frolicking in 50+ degree ocean water.

1 mom found this helpful

J.O.

answers from Boise on

I was born and raised in California, earthquakes are a breeze. While the early 90's one sucked, it was easier to handle.

Then I moved to Idaho...the winds scare the living tar out of me. Growing up i always had the same dream. I am a baby, but watching it from above, as a tree falls on my house and my family searches for me. I had this dream for years and years.

A year ago our power went out, and then the winds started. I had my kids and a few extra at the house. so i am telling them this story about a dream I had as a child and why I can't handle the winds. By this point they are really gusting outside.

About 10 minutes later, I hear this sound, never heard it before and then a massive boom. A tree had fallen on my house, right were the stairs are that lead to the basement and part of a back bedroom. Half of the kids here were in the basement (there is another door that leads outside).

Needless to say, when it get's windy I start to panic. I don't even have any PTSD from being held up at gun point 13 years ago....wind on the other hand makes me want to cry.

1 mom found this helpful

V.C.

answers from Dallas on

There was a really bad tornado in Dallas when I was 2-years-old. I was really afraid of them until I saw one as an adult. I know that doesn't make sense! I am still cautious though as we get really nasty weather here.
Are you familiar with wunderground? Here's a link for your area:

http://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?zoommode=p...
You can see exactly where the storms are and where they are headed.

1 mom found this helpful

K.A.

answers from San Diego on

Having grown up my entire life in Southern California I now sleep through most earthquakes or I just look around briefly to make sure nothing broke and go about my day. It's got to be something spectacular to get my attention anymore like the one we had a few years ago on Easter. We even had something fall off a shelf for that one.
I do not like the ideas of tornadoes or hurricanes. Both of them really bother me. Far more destructive than an earthquake in my mind.

1 mom found this helpful
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N.W.

answers from Eugene on

I'll never get used to driving over the pass in a snowstorm. Usually I can just stay home but last year my boys had a competition in Portland so I took a deep breath and forged ahead. Something about driving narrow mountain roads in a white out... and having a logging truck or some nut in an RV fly around me on the curve and take his half out of the middle. Too scary. I'll drive SoCal freeways anyday.

1 mom found this helpful
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S.R.

answers from El Paso on

I grew up in OKC. My parents live out by all of the local news stations and one year, one of the stations said "Well, if we look out our back door" and then the station went dead. So, my parents look out OUR back door, "oh, well look at that...." Yep, tornado headed our way. Okay, kids, let's go get in the closet. The only time I ever freaked out during a tornado was when I was actually away from home and someone had a radio on that was describing the path of the tornado. Sure enough (as usual) it was headed towards my parents' house. Fortunately, it didn't actually hit their house, but the house a half mile from theirs was COMPLETELY gone when I got home the next morning.

1 mom found this helpful
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K.L.

answers from Des Moines on

Oh...Iowa...I've been a little freaked out by tornadoes since I had my kids and we lived in an apartment. Now that we have a house with a lovely basement, I feel about them like I did before I had my kids...let's go outside and see if we can see it! Of course, I don't do that, but my hubby and I wish we could sometimes!

And this spring when we were woken up at 2am to the tornado sirens going...scariest damn thing!

But I love the midwest for the crazy weather...love watching all the storm shows and love learning more about tornadoes.

1 mom found this helpful
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D.B.

answers from Minneapolis on

We moved back to the Midwest after living in Florida for 11 years. My final straw was getting hit with 4 hurricanes in 6 weeks. I'll take a tornado any day. Blizzards are another matter....

1 mom found this helpful
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C.B.

answers from San Francisco on

I'm live in the SF Bay Area and I'm with your uncle. I'll take an earthquake every so often over annual tornadoes any day! We VERY RARELY have an earthquake that causes much damage whereas you have damaging tornadoes EVERY YEAR!

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