which is scarier: Tornado, Flood, Earthquake?

[Liberal_in_LA]

I've only experienced earthquakes. The big one in 94 was very scary. But these tornados seem worse.

???

[Donnachaidh]

1. earthquakes -- you can go NOWHERE to get out of the way

At least with most tornadoes, you can see and hear them coming. Floods, unless it's a massive dam breaking, you can get away from them.

But an earthquake? You can't run a mile away and get away from it.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. earthquake, outside away from buildings you are ok. Tornado, outside isn't an escape

earthquake, unless the ground cracks beneath you - very unlikely - outside in open is safe

[Donnachaidh]

24. uhh no -- remember the traffic cop who sailed off the road up by Palmdale in 94?

And I lived 2 blocks from the epicenter in 94. One block away from us were the gas fires from the broken underground gas lines. Outside isn't necessarily safe in an earthquake. :shrug:

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. I remember. I was a few miles from epicenter. I guess my scenario

applies to folks in rural areas.

[Ex Lurker]

36. You can always move to north central Canada

which is one of the most geologically stable areas on earth, and where tornadoes are extremely rare. Then you just have to stay away from floodplains and you're golden.

[uppityperson]

30. If you are in a town or city "outside away from buildings" often doesn't work

unless you are very near a big park. Pieces fall off buildings on to people and how do you get away from buildings if you're in a city?

[RandySF]

37. No, you can't always see them coming

Sometimes they strike in the dead of night, sometimes they form and approach before you have a chance to prepare.

[madokie]

2. Flood

flash floods actually

[bullimiami]

3. Hurricanes are no fun. And they keep it up for hours and hours.

[bullimiami]

9. And while on the subject. There needs to be National Catastophic Insurance.

It should cover not just floods but windstorms, snowstorms, earthquakes. everything.
It could be run just like flood ins is now.

[Donnachaidh]

25. THAT would be harder to get than universal health care

Insurance companies don't want to pay out on ANYTHING. That's why they get so bloody anal about *how* something happened. They love the *act of God* clauses, because it's a license to steal.

[Snoutport]

4. After watching the tsunami videos...i gotta say floods

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. Tsunami is triggered by earthquake. Flood triggered by excess rain

[Snoutport]

17. ok...sorry, can I say power of a wave or a flood washing across land?

[sufrommich]

6. I'd say the answer is whichever you have the better chance

of experiencing in your own area,so for me it would be tornado.

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. zero chance of tornado or flood in my area

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. tsunami less likely on this side of world, but could happen. I work about 6 miles from ocean

[dixiegrrrrl]

42. You live near Los Angeles?

"A rare Orange County tornado officially touched down today in California, just outside Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service, along with four water spouts and winds of up to 80 mph.

Experts are still analyzing what took place, but the Los Angeles Times confirmed that a storm "with tornado-like strength pounded the Southern California coast" this afternoon. Witnesses reported seeing a tornado touch down in Sunset Beach, lift boats out of the water and come on shore."
Jan. 2010

Also:
tornado 2008, Los Angeles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2-FVOq_How

[shanti]

8. earthquakes

there's NO advance notice that it's coming. at least with the others, you have a modicum of notice. they're all bad, however!

[JVS]

11. Flood.

They get bigger and become inescapable.

[flamingdem]

12. Nuclear Meltdown after a Tsunami and Earthquake nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

16. true enough

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[seabeyond]

14. having lived in areas with all three, hands down, fraid most of tornado area. nt

[MineralMan]

15. Well, since I now live in a place where flood and earthquakes

are vanishingly likely, I'd say tornado. We get those here. I'm only afraid of things that might happen.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Assuming they're all major, that would be the one that you're experiencing at the time.

Thanks for the thread, Liberal_in_LA.

[Sherman A1]

28. Agreed

I suspect it's all pretty much POV.

[Keith Bee]

21. Michele Bachmann

:scared:

[malaise]

22. Earthquake

We get notice for most other disasters

[Blue_In_AK]

23. I would rather live in Alaska with the threat of an earthquake

every few decades than in tornado alley where you're running the risk every year. I don't like those odds.

[Poboy]

26. Where is Hurricane on your list?

Hurricanes have tornadoes and flooding incorporated into their makeup.

[Richard D]

27. Whichever one you're in at the time.

[blondeatlast]

31. Yes. Beleive it or not, I've been through each. However, the sounds of a tornado

are terrifying. First there is dead silence--then (sorry, I don'[t want to think about it.)

[66 dmhlt]

32. HEAT kills more ... NOT tornadoes, floods or earthquakes - HEAT!

The numbers are striking. According to the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware, an average of 1,500 American city dwellers die each year because of the heat. Annual deaths from tornadoes, earthquakes and floods together total fewer than 200.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/health/most-deadly-of-the-natural-disasters-the-heat-wave.html

Granted, the data is a little old - but it's hard to imagine an exponential change in leas than a decade.

[Irritable Liberal]

Earthquake

Then again I live in L.A. and was caught in one of the worst hit neighborhoods in the '94 Northridge earthquake. It hit at 4 AM and they say move into the doorway if you can during an earthquake. I couldn't get off the bed & my wife and I held each other and just screamed for the minute or so it was happening. I didn't hear anything breaking but everything broke, it sounded as though a train was passing through the bedroom at full speed. We lived in a three story condo and it was a miracle the building didn't collapse.

The wood support columns, about 18" think all sheared off where they met with the concrete foundation above the subterranean garage. When the building was torn down to be rebuilt the engineers said the entire building shifted 18 inches in one direction and then back again, settling almost where it started out from. Had it shifted another couple of inches it probably would have collapsed.

I haven't lived through any other natural disasters but I can't imagine anything more terrifying than that one minute. It was a lot scarier than been held up at gunpoint which has happened to me a couple of times.

[doc03]

33. The Republicans gaining control of Congress and possibly

the Whitehouse in 2012.

[haele]

34. Experianced small flood, big (7.4)quake, F2 tornado. Tornado hands down.

You can build for quakes. They may be a bit of a suprise, but unless you're smack dab on the epicenter, if you're in a building built for a quake, you'll survive. And there's less of a chance of you getting killed in an earthquake than pretty much anything else on earth. They're disconcerting, true - but for the most part, it's easy to pick up after one.

Tornado - far more damage, happens far more often, and more of a chance being caught unawares and hurt if you live in Tornado Alley than if you live in Earthquake country - even if the "Big One" comes along.

Flooding is pretty nasty, too. And again, happens in far more frequency than an earthquake.

You forgot Fire. IMO, Wild Fires are worse than floods - but then, I live in California, where there is more of a chance you'll lose everything or get killed in a bad brush fire than in a quake.

The Earthquake to worry about will be when the New Madrid goes - and it's overdue. You guys back east and in the Midwest are just not built for a quake of that magnitude.

Haele

[Ex Lurker]

38. There's some thought among geologists that New Madris is becoming dormant

perhaps just wishful thinking

[RandySF]

35. I've been through a tornado and a minor earthquake

And while the earthquake took me more by surprise, nothing matches the terror of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when a tornado strikes. I was driving West on I-94 just outside Jackson, Michigan when I was caught in ungodly wind and hail that I was afraid would come through the windshield. I literally thought I was going to die and later learned that the tornado was about a mile away. No, I wasn't in the vortex, But I was close enough that I never, EVER want to go through that again.

[a la izquierda]

39. Tornadoes...

you sit and wait and wonder if you're going to blow away. You don't have time to think in an earthquake, you just react. I don't know about floods.

[Chris_Texas]

40. Tsunami

[alfredo]

41. Tornadoes and earthquakes come and go quickly, but floods

hang around way too long and leave a stinky toxic mess. Even if the house survived, it becomes a mold nursery and will need extensive work to remove all sheetrock and anything that holds moisture.