I vaguely remember the flood of 1954 on the East coast.... I was a little kid in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Mostly I remember seeing the water mark on the side of the skating shelter by the pond as I got older.
Sometime later in the '50's there was a blizzard where we lost power and heat for several days and had to use the gas oven very cautiously for heat. I remember having an earache and sitting with my Mom on the kitchen chairs grouped around the oven while my Dad went out to help take care of the students and other faculty members at the boarding school where he taught. We lived in a ground floor apartment and the snow was much higher than the windows! I desperately wanted to accompany my Dad the day after the storm to play in the snow but he said that I was much too small and that it probably wasn't a great idea anyway in light of the fact that I still had an earache. I was furious and just cried. I must have been 4 or 5.
When I was 7 there was a fire one floor up and our apartment sustained minor water damage. I was in another fire at 15 which was much more serious; thankfully everyone got out of the building safely just before the windows exploded and the roof caved in. I've never ignored a fire alarm since then.
Almost struck by lightning.... at least twice. Singed the hair off my arms, made my mouth taste funny, (braces), and exploded all the light bulbs at the lodge. The second time I was in an aluminum canoe with several other kids sitting in the bottom while a two teenagers paddled us back to shore when a thunderstorm came out of nowhere. I remember all the adults pouring out of the lodge, running up and down the beach shrieking and screaming at the older kids to paddle faster.
A few Earthquakes in California. A couple of really scary mondo brush fires where we sprayed water on the roof to keep it from catching fire. Big fires near my parents house in the Oakland hills in 1971 and then in 1991. Stopped a 1/4 mile away in '91, a mile and a half in '71.
Sand storms in Palm Springs... made a mess of the pool lol.
Then back to the East coast where I lived in Key West surviving multiple incidences of lightning... the type that accompanies HUGE tropical / borderline hurricane / storms, heat lightning over the ocean while sailing, an incident while sitting around drinking coffee and just generally yukking it up at the kitchen table of my best friend Charlie when a rogue lightning bolt struck and exploded a bush right outside the window next to the table. The lights went out, we jumped up screamed and grabbed each other in total fright. We swore never to tell anyone how totally terrified we were, it would have tarnished our image. I can't recall anything as loud as the accompanying thunderclap including all the Dance Clubs I've frequented lol. Wild lightning while flying from Key West to Sarasota in a little plane which was too small to fly over the thunder clouds. We kind of zig zagged our way to Sarasota because it seemed that every time we changed direction it was as if we were flying from one storm to another.
And oh I almost forgot about the waterspouts; somewhat un-nerving if you’re out on the water. Interesting to watch while on land.
That brings me to Boston where I currently reside. As you might guess there've been several instances of violent storms... heavy rain, heavy snow, a couple of hurricanes but nothing as intense as what I experienced last spring. There were these incredible really scary micro bursts raging in the air above Boston. Since I am on the road all day in a ¾ ton van for my job I got really anxious because I thought I’d driven to a safe spot to stop as the visibility had become so bad. I was on the phone checking to see how the weather was in other parts of the city when I realized that the truck was really being heavily buffeted, the sky had become dark and the trees were being whipped around. I knew I was in real trouble when a garbage can flew past my windshield and a huge branch crashed to the ground.
Right before my very eyes a funnel cloud was developing, that’s when I stepped on the gas and drove like crazy away from what I knew could turn in to a really dangerous situation if that funnel cloud touched down. Amazingly as I drove away looking in the rear view mirror praying that I wasn’t being followed by that nightmare, to my utter amazement the violent swirling winds dissipated and the sky lightened. Miraculously as I drove in to the parking lot at work I could see the sun emerging through the clouds in the distance.