BRIT Reacts to the WORST HURRICANES in AMERICAN HISTORY..

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Reacting to the Worst hurricanes in american history, its crazy to see how scary these hurricanes are and how much damage they can really do!
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[@cazsoccerrox]

I was in Binghamton, NY for Hurricane Irene. It did $2 billion in damage to two counties alone. I was also in Florida for Hurricane Ian. My wife was driving the SUV to open a shelter, and while she was driving, she couldn’t go over 50 mph because the front of the car started lifting off of the ground.

[@jack80028]

I'm from nc and we have hurricanes like every year but the worse I have ever witnessed is hurricane Katrina

[@CaerlaverockJaguar]

You should watch Reed Timmer intercepting a tornado.

[@nialcc]

Now you know why Insurance companies have stopped written polices for Florida.

[@CaerlaverockJaguar]

@@nialcc and it’s sad because Florida is a great place to raise a family, thanks in part to our wonderful Governor Ron DeSantis.

[@gdhaney136]

In the US, you have choices. Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and blizzards. I've been through every single one, more than once, and I've come to the personal conclusion that hurricanes scare me the least. So, I live in St. Pete FL. You couldn't pay me to live in Tornado Alley, spend winters in the Northern US, or live anywhere in California again.

[@EggZausted1]

You can add Derechos to that too. We just had one a couple of weeks ago that started near Austin and continued to the east coast of Florida. It's winds topped 100mph with sustained winds of 60+ the entire path. It was nuts.

[@19airaz]

Ehhh I’d say blizzards scare me the least, as someone who’s spent the past two winters up north but grew up in south east Texas. From least to most scary I’d probably say, blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires and tornados are neck and neck.

[@kimberlyhicks3644]

Volcanic eruptions happen here as well. Mt. Kilauea, in Hawaii, is erupting right at this moment.

[@jeffb6786]

Sorry, but I'll take the blizzards and snowstorms over all the rest. Third generation Colorado native and I love the snow. At least my house doesn't get swept away from one of our storms.

[@gdhaney136]

@@jeffb6786 Totally understand. They seem to cause the least amount of damage and aren't exactly 'scary'. My brother has lived in Colorado on and off his whole life, and loves snowboarding. Some people are born to love the cold. I'm fairly certain I was born a reptile because I'd die without heat and sun. I also get depressed with grey skies, although, I'm sure Colorado is much different than the east coast winters.

[@charlesbryson7443]

While I was in the military, we went to New Orleans after Katrina. doing humanitarian work, search and rescue, etc. The stories we heard and things we saw, made us want to be overseas again. The things the people had to suffer from other people was terrible. I will never go back to that city.

[@nanner3200]

Thank you for doing what you could!

[@Annonymous0283745]

Post-Katrina New Orleans is a depressing reflection of New Orleans that was.

[@edithroberts8959]

That was just flood water. Mississippi caught the brunt of that storm and was ignored because New Orleans got flooded.

[@hannabertrand4460]

I live in the Lake Charles area and all these people from NOLA evacuated to our area and 3 weeks later, we got hit with a category 4 hurricane (Rita) so they had to evacuate again. There were no hotel rooms left in Arkansas. We slept in a church one night then drove to Tennessee and stayed for a few weeks.

[@garya7893]

We had military people remove the school gym roof from our front yard in Algiers after Katrina Thank you and your friends I was lucky to receive very little damage

[@peterphilly4148]

One of the saddest stories associated with the Galveston hurricane involved the orphanage. The 10 nuns running it were forced to take the 93 children, ages 2 to 13, up to the second floor of the girls' dormitory as the city flooded. All of the windows had been broken out by the wind. They attempted to rescue people as they floated by. The water kept rising. To try and keep the children together, they cut up clothesline and tied it around the wrist of each of the children and then to the nuns' waist. They heard the boys' dormitory collapse. Eventually, the orphanage was completely destroyed and much of it washed out to sea. During the recovery, they would find the body of a nun in the debris and as they pulled on the lines tied to her waste, they would find the body of a drowned child. 90 of the 93 children and all of the nuns died. 3 boys were found together in a tree floating on the water, the only survivors.

[@hookedonreactions7649]

Have you read “Isaac’s Storm” by Eric Larson? I highly recommend it though you might find it a little dry at first.

[@v-vettavetta]

That’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard

[@ShaquilleOatmeal842]

That’s… so horrible. 😞❤️

[@lynnwood84]

Life-long Floridian here, and I can tell you the biggest advantage we have over other natural disasters (earthquakes, tornadoes, etc) is the warning. Nowadays you have ample time to evacuate from these storms (if you have the means to do so). Down here in Florida our houses and our infrastructure is built to withstand most lower grade storms (Cat 1, Cat 2) with minimal damage. We usually don't start to worry until it gets to Category 3+. Once they get to that strength we don't mess around, we GTFO. Property can be replaced, homes can be rebuilt, but you can't bring back the dead.

[@xoxxobob61]

Spoken like a TRUE Floridian! CAT 3 + and I'm GONE! 😁😓

[@iamtequilalc]

My family who live in Florida now say if they hear Waffle House is closed, they're out. The Waffle House Index is legendary and apparently true.

[@HaroldBluetooth-uz1zz]

@@xoxxobob61That’s not a true Floridian. I’m from FL and my family has generally never left for any hurricane. The people who leave are generally people not from here and are more wealthy.

[@xoxxobob61]

@@HaroldBluetooth-uz1zz I went thru Hurricane ANDREW in 1992. I'm leaving if it's a CAT 3+ cause I'm not a spring chicken anymore!

[@HaroldBluetooth-uz1zz]

@@xoxxobob61 If you are older I can understand. However my grandparents are getting close to 80 now and I don’t think they ever left for a storm.

[@ssaraa24]

I’m from Jersey and I’ll never forget Sandy. We were out of power for about a week and then immediately lost it again when a nor’easter hit and dropped a bunch of snow. We had neighbors over every day because we had a generator and could run the heat for a while each day. You don’t normally associate hurricanes with cold temperatures but getting hit with the snow while still reeling from Sandy was the worst part of the whole thing.

[@tiamarrow6366]

I’m from Long Island and I still see some remnants of Sandy to this day in my town. Idk where you’re located in Jersey but the town I live in on Long Island…..when you get to the south shore, you can still see a few homes that are either still gone or are still being rebuilt due to Sandy.

[@michellegardenier2174]

Agreed

[@TheJerseyNinja]

Yep. Thankfully we had a generator but we used it only to run our fridge and freezer and 2 space heaters when we needed them. Strangest storm trajectory I’ve ever seen and it’s honestly insane how MASSIVE the hurricane was

[@kimberlyannekeegan2707]

yup! i was in 5th grade and we were out of school for over a month because the roof of our school literally blew off

[@vivienneclarke2421]

I was flying home from Australia during Sandy. Lots of canceled flights and it took me 3 days to get home. When I got here it was a mess,no electricity for almost 2 weeks. Sadly 2 teenagers in my little agricultural town lost there lives when their car was swept away. My oldest daughter went to high school with them💔

[@charlayned]

A bit about the 1900 Galveston storm (historian here, live 15 miles away). After the town was decimated by that storm, the city decided to put in a sea wall to hold back the water. As a barrier island, it was flat and there was nothing to stop the gulf water from just coming over the entire island in a storm. So, they had the Army Corps of Engineers built a seawall. The first part was 3 miles long, 17 ft high from waterline to top. As it was being built, Ft. Crocket (where the San Louis resort is now) paid for another 2 miles long, from 8th street to 53 in total. It's been extended since then another couple miles as the city has grown. BUT that wasn't the biggest thing they did (as if it was small, which it wasn't), it was the raising of the city itself. Most structures were damaged or destroyed, but those that did remain needed to be higher than the island so they put jack screws and wound them with donkeys VERY carefully, to raise each building between 5 ft and 15 ft into the air. Then they pumped dredged sand under them to raise the building, and gently settled the building back down. St. Patricks Catholic church was done this way and it's a big stone structure. It was amazing what they could do in 1900-1915. A couple of good videos here on KZbin about it, the History Guy did a good one kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHbPgniJlKmbZrMsi=nh8c8WY-VGaxbKHj and there's a 15 minute silent with photographs of the grade raising kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3rWqXV8psSYnK8si=X54FyAMIQrECtL6V . Both are well worth the watch.

[@paigeharrison3909]

Still rated as the worst natural disaster in the US.

[@sakurakittynoir1400]

You said you live near Galveston. Have you ever seen Sister Katherine before a hurricane???

[@jimreilly917]

😮

[@charlayned]

@@sakurakittynoir1400 No, I haven't. I have heard of her, though. The closest I came to being in Galveston during a storm was a small tropical storm that we were moving a friend during (that was fun....not). But I haven't been to the island just before a storm.

[@ceceward1628]

Don’t forget because of the Seawall now galveston flood much easier and the water will be at a standstill at certain points

[@John-fk3rv]

I live in South Carolina, and when I was 16 yrs old, Hurricane Hugo passed directly over our house. I remember so clearly when the eye passed over us; it was a total stop of wind and rain, and then it started up all over again, but the wind was blowing the opposite way. We had no power for 2 weeks. People were charging $20 for a bag of ice.

[@highwayhobo1981]

We lived outside Summerville during Hugo. That was the largest storm of my life ( non snow )

[@Harperartist]

I worked in Piedmont for Duke Power during Hugo. Went to work and then went to Charlotte that weekend. Hugo came up the Santee Cooper River and gained strength as it came in land.

[@undeadOtter]

I was in Biloxi Mississippi when Katrina hit, the next morning it looked like a bomb went off... But all anytime talked about was new Orleans, Mississippi had a ton of damage but it was mostly ignored for new Orleans because of crappy maintenance, where we were hit with storm surge, wind and more

[@angiev1840]

Exactly. The MS gulf coast was obliterated but all you saw on TV was new Orleans. There were places in MS where all that was left was the foundations of homes because storm surge washed everything away.

[@m.r.2848]

Yeah, they really downplayed the damage to MS. We drove through there on a road trip and almost ran out of gas because every time we exited to get it, we found flattened ruins. I told my husband it looked like there had been a clash of the titans. Like a god had taken the time to come down and personally stomp on everything. We thought it would be fine as long as we didn’t drive through New Orleans thanks to the news coverage.

[@undeadOtter]

@@m.r.2848 I lived there for almost 20 years but that point, the next day I couldn't recognize anything. All the things I knew were just gone. All the beautiful historical homes along the beach, almost the entirety of Bay St. Louis was leveled. But every station, every broadcast every resource was directed to New Orleans instead. Then what FEMA help was given was so screwed up. A guy in front of me bragged he got a big check and didn't even lose shingles, whereas I lost everything and didn't get a dime because it was all in my ex bosses name and he screwed me

[@m.r.2848]

@@undeadOtter Wow, with all that tragedy, there were still evil people who'd take advantage. Hopefully, you were able to come back from that. From what I saw, it must've been absolutely devastating.

[@undeadOtter]

@@m.r.2848 it was definitely a long time ago and life has changed a whole lot. Things are most definitely better, now I'm just saving to move out of Oklahoma before I lose another home

[@ChrisStephens-jz3tc]

1928 Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white gloves. That Galveston hurricane happened in 1900. That one still photo with the lady was from a later picture. Very observation!!!!!

[@finnyjoy2309]

I lived through hurricane Harvey in 2017 in Texas. In 24 hours, the town I was at was so flooded you couldn’t get out of it, power and water had to be shut off, and we had to wait 4 days before the water levels were low enough for my car could drive to Houston and fly back. On a funny note, the roads and ground was flooded so high, people got out of their homes by kayak or motorboat 😂

[@ArleneAdkinsZell]

In Home Free's video for God Blessed Texas, they had a lot of footage from Nederland, in the midst of the devastation and heroism, there was the guy going on beer runs for people pulling a kiddie pool, it is such a lovely tribute.

[@annekim2634]

@@ArleneAdkinsZell That's cool. The bass Tim is from Nederland so it makes sense.

[@annekim2634]

I remember hearing they were running rescue boats up and down Deats road. It was surreal.

[@TechTimeWithEric]

I was a firefighter in New Jersey during both Irene and Sandy and was working during those storms. I was actually outside during the worst parts of both storms, but I am far enough inland that it was just mostly heavy rain and winds. I’ve also been to New Orleans twice with an organization called Samaritans Purse. You would be amazed how much of the city hasn’t been touched as far as cleanup goes even 19 years later

[@angiev1840]

It's a lack of money and will plus a lot of people who left never came back. There was no way to save many of those houses. New Orleans city govt is probably the most corrupt in our state so funds are not allocated the way they should and as is typical, people get screwed by their insurance companies and can't rebuild.

[@TechTimeWithEric]

@@angiev1840 it’s literally insane. I’m not even sure if Samaritan’s Purse still goes down there. It’s like what happened with Flint Michigan’s water situation. People don’t want to admit that their own government lied and stole their money. If I said what I really think YT might ban me, so I’ll just say there’s a lot of people in local government that should be arrested

[@GameOfGubbs]

As a Florida resident, the worst Hurricane I have personally lived through was Ian back in 2022, being inland you don't see much damage but this one cut straight across the state and still had plenty of power miles inland, this one actually surpassed Irma in damages by nearly double the cost. I had usually never seen flooding in the area around me but we had streets and areas out of commission for days bordering on weeks because there was nowhere for water to drain quickly. Where the eye of the hurricane impacted the coast I remember seeing videos of alligators and I believe even sharks or dolphins swimming down flooded streets.

[@kshaek]

What about Michael that was a Cat 5 in 18?

[@GameOfGubbs]

@@kshaek I don't live on the panhandle so I wasn't really hit by it at all, also it ended up costing about a quarter of Ian's damages.

[@kshaek]

@@GameOfGubbs true, that's what was reported.....but it's cool. Only a Cat 5 Hurricane no one in talks about..... Again, a lot of people are still in litigation with destroyed homes living out of trailers...

[@1perfectpitch]

I'm a fellow Floridian and the 1st hurricane I remember was Donna September 10, 1960. 6 days before my 10th birthday. This video must have been made before Ian.

[@jenwhite8173]

Whatever year that we had Charlie, Frances, and Gene was pretty gnarly.

[@jayar7436]

I am from Charleston and was in elementary school when Hurricane Hugo hit. It was an incredibly devastating storm. Our electricity was off for weeks; we barely had clean water. So much was destroyed. Everyone who lived through that time can tell you how crazy life was immediately after Hugo. You can still see remnants of the damage from the hurricane.

[@highwayhobo1981]

I was in the Summerville/ Whitesville area. We took shelter in the elementary school, but much of that roof got ripped off

[@jayar7436]

@@highwayhobo1981My mother worked for the Sheriff’s Office and volunteered to help man the emergency phones (911), so we (my siblings and I) were able to shelter with her at the central operating center (or whatever it was called). My middle school’s gym was a shelter, but ended up getting flooded when the roof started to leak, so the people were forced to run into the main building during the storm.

[@samanthaleo2590]

Hugo was a monster. My mom lived in Florida during it and had moved two years later to New York to adopt me, and we were back in Florida in 92 when Andrew was well on its way there. We made it out with a day to spare. Two monstrous hurricanes so close to each other was nuts.

[@Xsteelx94]

I saw a ton of rain with Sandy, but the worst experience I ever had in eastern Pennsylvania was Hurricane Irene. My family home’s sump pump battery failed, and the water was flooding our basement, so we spent the entire night in two hour shifts using any small containers to scoop the water into the basement sink. My father installed a water-activated sump pump afterward. We’ve had mega-soaker storms since, and the pump has never failed, highly recommend such a thing

[@angiev1840]

I grew up and still live in south Louisiana. Hurricanes are a part of life. I hate them but tornadoes actually scare me more. We don't get them often but there's no warning and we have nowhere to go. We don't have basements. With hurricanes, you have a warning and you can evacuate.

[@hagen1305]

Exactly how I feel. I’m from New Orleans and went through Katrina. It was terrible, we didn’t come home Texas until October, but I’ll take hurricanes any day over a tornado

[@choomxi]

Right. We grow up with hurricanes teasing us from the gulf. Tornados come out of nowhere. Thats a crazy thought to me. You could be having your coffee and next thing you know your house is leveled and you're praying to survive.

[@feoltmanns7624]

Tornadoes scare me more than anything else. They can drop anywhere without warning. You have to stay weather aware and get to your safe spot until the danger is gone.

[@DaveMustang74]

We rode Katrina out in Gulfport, Mississippi, back in 05. We were pounded hard for hours in the eye wall. The actual coastline was transformed forever. Many historic buildings that survived Camille in 1969 were gone. Even today, the beach areas have a lot of empty land. Mother nature doesn't play. What i remember the best was the heat afterward. That's pretty much peak summertime. It was a lot of...fun.

[@spirals73]

Worse than Camille, that's saying a lot. I watched a documentary on Camille and some dude got caught outside. He was a kid at the time and somehow survived, sans clothes. The storm ripped them all right off him.

[@DaveMustang74]

@@spirals73 the survival stories after major hurricanes (or any catastrophe, really) can be amazing.

[@Noonespecial-qp4sl]

Its a long coast. You pack your pets, kids and valuable stuff and get the help out of dodge. Then you have to pray you have a house to go back to.

[@annfrost3323]

The Galveston hurricane of 1900 killed estimates of 6,000 to 12,000 and destroyed 3,600+ buildings. Particularly interesting is that after the hurricane, the city built a seawall and raised the elevation of 500 city blocks between 5 to 17 feet. Engineers physically lifted more than 2,000 structures, fences, streetcar tracks, utilities and water pipes using jacks and stilts and millions of cubic yards of sand. Some of the buildings are still standing such as a church on 35th street, which was raised 5 feet using 700 jacks.

[@cindytyner]

Lived in North Carolina when Hugo hit! My windows blew out. All the flag poles around us were bent over and all the smaller trees were bent over even after the hurricane was long gone. They didn't break just bent over at a 90 degree angle. They eventually straightened themselves over time. Some big tree fell on cars and powerlines. 5 days no power and stores cleared of everything non-perishable. Couldn't buy gas, batteries, charcoal, propane , candles, matches etc. When the bread truck arrived after the hurricane, the bread never made it in the store. They sold it to the crowd off the back of the truck.

[@Sassysouthernlady]

Hugo was terrifying. Two weeks no power. Trees on the top of our house. It took months to get it fixed. Definitely want homeowners insurance here.

[@Bptornado]

That was definitely the worst storm I’ve ever been through

[@Icemirror319]

The Great Storm of 1900 is the basis for many of the ghost stories of Galveston. Not surprising given how many lost their lives. An especially heartbreaking one is the loss of an orphanage near the shore. The Sisters tied themselves and the kids together with a rope around their waists so that no one would be swept away if the flood waters came in. In the end, it was probably the reason all of them drowned. We know about them because of three survivors that climbed onto the roof and got stuck in a tree when the structure collapsed. When the bodies were found on the beach after the storm, they unburied them, the rope, and every other child still tied to them who wasn't initially visible under the sand. The site of the former orphanage was marked on Sept. 8, 1994 with a Texas Historical Marker.

[@myhappyplace7861]

Hurricane Camille when I was a baby - about a year old. Then Katrina in 2005. We lost an entire fishing camp in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and our home in Louisiana had severe damage from wind and trees. Mostly due to tornadoes as we were on that side of her. The saddest thing to. Me was the complete lack of media coverage of the Mississippi Gulf Coast devastation and relative lack of assistance from the government. They quietly pulled themselves back up by their bootstraps and are trying to rebuild their historic towns all these years later. And they’re doing it.

[@tyreedillard]

I've been directly in 3, Hurricanes Rita, Ike, and Harvey, and a shit load of tropical storms and major floods. As a Red Cross volunteer I've worked 10 major Disasters including Hurricanes Katrina, and Wilma.

[@dlmullins9054]

I remember Hurricane Camille when i was a young man. Even though i lived in Manassas, Virginia at the time it still was bad. Many streets were flooded and it was still a strong hurricane, A tornado split my house in two and a huge tree came within inches of killing me and my wife. Thank God the tree helped hold the house down and i ended up with two smaller houses! 😁I was also hit by a F4 Tornado back in 1982. Ripped my house into two pieces. Fortunately for us, a large tree was pulled from it's roots and thrown into my home splitting it but it also held my house down so the Tornado didn't take it with my family inside into the next county. I couldn't sleep for ten years after if it was raining or the wind was blowing. It scared me that bad. I still pay attention to the weather warnings.

[@moas_page]

I’m from Louisiana and have heard all the stories from my older family about Katrina and Rita and everything that happened, my little small town was pretty much flooded and damaged. Hurricane Laura and Delta hit Louisiana a few years ago and damaged my home, and tree fell through my aunts house completely destroying everything they owned, and I know lots of other people who had damage. My grandpa didn’t evacuate and stayed in a brick home with some neighbors and he said when it was coming through the whole house was shaking and it sounded like a train whistle just constantly blaring outside bc of the wind. Me and some family evacuated and stayed in hotel for a while before coming back but when we came back we had no power for weeks and lived in one room ran by a generator until we had power again and could start fixing the damage. Thats my personal experience with hurricanes so far as someone who lives on the coast.

[@alvinestep6492]

I am originally from Homestead, Florida. Hurricane Andrew flattened the entire town in August of 1992. To this day, the lot my house was on is still empty. There's a street, and you can see on google street view where the driveway was, but no houses yet on that block. It was so flattened, you could see the ocean where it used to be blocked bu buildings.

[@xoxxobob61]

I went through ANDREW as well living in West Kendall but stayed further North. Going back to Southern Miami-Dade County looked like a Nuclear bomb had gone off because everything was almost completely leveled. I literally drove 3 blocks past my house before I realized I had passed my street!

[@ellie8461]

God, I remember Hurricane Sandy. I was pretty young, but I remember hunkering down with my mom while buckets and buckets of rain poured down outside. There was thunder so intense it shook the whole house. I can’t remember if we lost power (probably did), but the aftermath was wild. So many trees had been completely uprooted, roads had varying levels of standing water for like a few days, with some even being closed off all together. Houses were either destroyed or the roofs were torn off. Considering my state is on the edge of Lake Erie., it barely does any justice just how powerful these storms really are.

[@mrgclough]

For Galveston 1900, 8,000 is the minimum dead. It's somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000. Galveston was and is a low barrier island. At the time, the city was barely above sea level. Storm surges had nothing to slow them. Some people survived to tell of being swept out to sea and back in multiple times. Soldiers who arrived to keep order after the storm summary executed anyone caught looting. Took them down the neatest alley and killed them. There were many deaths from roof tiles being blown at high speed. After that, tiles were banned. After the storm a massive concrete and granite seawall was built, and the entire built up part of the city was raised several feet, houses, utilities and streets, by jacking them up and pumping mud in from pump barges in the Gulf. I grew up there, and I lived five blocks from the Gulf, actually a good place to be, behind the seawall and relatively high ground. I went through a number of major hurricanes, including Carla that had three tornadoes embedded within it.

[@johnmcgowan3559]

My family was in Mississippi when Hurricane Camille hit. We were in a shelter and all I remember is my parents telling at me to get away from the windows because I kept wanting to watch the storm.

[@markmurphy558]

I have lived in almost every part of the USA, and have found that we are most frightened by the dangers we have never experienced. When I lived in LA as a child, I thought earthquake tremors were cool as hell. When summering in Long Island, we had a hurricane party and went outside to experience the storm. Tornados occasionally made it up to New York State but never caused me any grief. Humans have an unbelievable ability to adapt to Mother Nature.

[@Xtinakattv]

I was in Florida through Irma. I was born, raised and have always lived on the coast where hurricane season is a thing and its crazy realizing how casual that makes you towards hurricanes vs people who arent used to them. Like they are still scary but make no mistake, we prepare and we party lol

[@Kat-tr2ig]

9:21 My aunt lives in North Port, Florida, and her home was heavily damaged by Hurricane Ian. Even though she had insurance, the company refused to pay for anything, stating that because there was so much destruction they couldn't afford to pay all of their clients. And that was that. So even if you do have insurance, it doesn't matter. It's been 2 years now and my aunt is still rebuilding her home, by herself.

[@jimj.3086]

Ft Lauderdale here, I live on the beach and have been through many hurricanes/tropical storms including Andrew in 1992. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 completely devastated the beaches, sidewalks and roads along the beach and recovery efforts involved a new 40 ft. submerged seawall , roads, sidewalks and replacement sand...yes, sand was trucked in.Hurricane Irma in 2017 was the last one that I stayed in my home for rather than evacuating, it spawned a lot of tornadoes and from that point on I'm out until it's over.

[@BrLoc]

Americans are more than willing to gamble on a hurricane to live by the beach. We all 100% understand the risks.

[@skittles7306]

You know the damage doesn't always affect just beach land, right? It often, at least in the case of what I've experienced, comes several hundreds of miles inland.

[@ErikHeimdallr]

I had just retired from the US Army in April of 2005. We decided that in order to stretch our money we decided on a home on Alabama's Gulf Coast, halfway between Mobile, Alabama and Pascagoula, Mississippi. The home was a Geodesic dome which was built by the previous homeowner, and made to survive strong hurricanes. Since we weren't directly in the cone of the storms path, we decided to ride it out. Though the storm did make landfall between Pascagoula and New Orleans, we were hammered by high winds, torrential rains, and storm surge. I'm happy to report that the home lived up to its billing. Although we didn't get a direct hit from Katrina, we had sustained winds of 60 mph and it caused alot of damage to trees, roads, and surrounding homes. Our home sustained very little damage outside of some shingles which covered 75% of the dome. The devastation on Dauphin Island, where my children went to school, was enormous. Driving on I-10 going west was an altogether different story as homes were swept off their slabs and foundations, and multi-million dollar casinos on the Biloxi, Mississippi coast were destroyed. One casino was torn from its foundation and the entire structure pushed hundeds of yards inland. The damage to New Orleans is almost indescribable.

[@rodney-m7g]

I live by the beach on a small island just off the south shore of Long island , New York . We were hit hard by Sandy. WE had a 17 foot high storm surge here and it hit at dead high tide . Our entire island was under water , the high point on our island is maybe 10 feet above sea level . We and most of our neighbors did not evacuate because we watched the reports of the storm weakening as it approached , but the height of the storm surge wasn't known until it hit land .A rather interesting couple of months followed as the clean-up and restoration went on . Buildings and homes were still being repaired or completely torn down and rebuilt 4 years later .My home suffered about $150,000 of damage and insurance only covered $30,000 of it .There was so much damage in a wide area from New Jersey , Staten Island , Brooklyn , Queens , Manhattan , and the whole south shore of Long Island that it was extremely difficult to get any repair help . I had electricians whom I had called immediately after the storm first calling me back 4 and 5 months later . Fortunately we knew a contractor and because I was able to front him the money without waiting for months to collect insurance ours was repaired within 2 months .I have been in 3 hurricanes , 2 in New York and 1 in Virginia as well as seeing a near miss by a tornado in Alabama but Sandy was by far the most damaging .

[@AshleyHunt-m2m]

I’m from southeast Louisiana. 30 minutes north of New Orleans. Katrina was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. So many homes were completely submerged in water, and so much life lost. Driving by the homes afterwards you could see the markings in bright colors outside the homes marking where they had been searched and how many bodies were found there. So many people trapped on their roofs with nowhere to go. Civilians getting into their boats to rescue their neighbors. So much destruction and grief. Our home had a hole in the side of it and some water damage. I’ll never forget driving to our house to figure out the condition it was in afterwards and just praying we would have something left. It was terrifying.

[@JiggyMagpie]

I went through hurricane Hugo in North Carolina, when I was a kid. We went without power for weeks. We lived about a half mile off the main road and had to use chainsaws to cut our way out. We had to bathe in the swimming pool and dip water out of the pool to flush the toilets. Businesses started price gouging. I remember the authorities saying they were going to prosecute businesses doing that, but they never did.

[@lovelygg13]

Heyooo! Former Floridian here (now South Carolinian)! I just discovered your channel last night but still pretty cool and fun to see your reactions to all the hurricane info and such. My first storm was Hurricane Charley at age 8, and sadly we ended up getting our share of it at night, kinda sparking my phobia of storms/thunder/lightning. So far I had been through 11 total hurricanes/tropical storms, all of which we always stayed at our home (tho we always had the promise that if we were going to take a direct hit from a storm, we would evacuate a day or so prior). Fun fact, my mom's side of the family took that direct hit from Hugo back in the day :P

[@f0bxluver717]

I was in New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy and I will never forget it. It was so surreal sitting at my bedroom window watching the sky flash blue because of transformers bursting. I luckily never lost power and didn't have any major damage but had friends that had no power or gas for 2 weeks.

[@amandas2639]

I had just started second grade when Hurricane Andrew hit. Now, bear in mind that I lived in the Mid-Atlantic, about 1,000 miles from where the hurricane made landfall. I still remember being puzzled by my school letting out early and sending us home. Shortly after the early release, we got flooded by the heavy rainfall caused by the storm's remnants as it tracked north through Appalachia. Again, *1,000 MILES NORTH* of where the actual hurricane hit. Absolutely wild.

[@quinnwisniewski]

Fun Fact! Galveston was set to be the "Next Manhattan" / "Manhattan of the South" right before the hurricane hit. Galveston still hasn't caught up to being the city it once was. I used to live in Galveston as a kid. We were a military family and were lucky enough to stationed there twice in a row for a total of 7 years. My absolute favorite place to be was the island with all the history and fun and good vibes. The second my family moved, nobody knew what Galveston was, nor the hurricane. I'm all the way up in WA now, and the only things I don't miss are the mosquitoes and heavy, humidified heat.

[@elwood393]

There was an inland hurricane in Utah in 2020. Winds were so strong that it ripped hundred-year-old trees straight out of the ground. In an old graveyard near my apartment, some graves next to old trees even got upturned. And the trees falling sounded like rolling thunder. It was unreal!

[@kateg7298]

Our house in Galveston was moved something like 16 blocks and they shored it up 17 feet. There are also marks painted on the walls where Ike put Galveston 8 feet under in 2008. In 2017 we were right under Hurricane Harvey where it stalled for days. Luckily, they had put in 10' storm drains and we have Archimedes screws pulling water. We lost a lot of trees but no damage to our houses. We did have to wait a few days to get power back and the roads to clear.

[@Catdragin1]

I used to live in Galveston and went through the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. We evacuated to Dallas, so I wasn't on the island when it happened, but I was back on the island a week later. The other significant hurricane I went through was Hurricane Harvey. I evacuated Galveston to stay at friends in Dickinson, TX. That unfortunate decision left us surrounded by flood water and unable to leave for a week. We were lucky in that particular subdivision because all around us people's houses flooded. And to add to the information about the 1900 Storm in Galveston, if you look at some of the mausoleums in the Broadway cemetery, you'll see evidence of the grade raising of the island. Instead of full buildings, you'll see just the roofs above ground. They didn't want to disturb the dead by raising their tombs.

[@susiereber]

I was in Pennsylvania during Hurricane Sandy. Lost power for a few days. One thing I can't forget is hearing what I thought was a train coming my way, but it was the wind. I could hear it coming before it ever reached any trees around me, they were still when I first heard it.

[@Tarzan91303]

I was 7 years old when hurricane Beulah struck the southern tip of Texas. We fled to a Red Cross shelter in San Antonio. When we came back our home was destroyed. But our Aunt’s home survived mostly intact and we stayed there until we found a one bedroom apartment (for 4 of us). There were hardly any places left.

[@twilightwolfqueen409]

Grew up in Maryland and lived thru Hurricane Isabelle. Agnes was referenced a lot during recaps, but Isabelle caused many waterfront homes to flood due to it pushing water up the Chesapeake and rivers during high tide. Luckily since moving to South Carolina, I haven't experienced anything like Hugo but have experienced my share of scares since these storms frequently produce tornadoes in my area. Rule of thumb when it comes to hurricane season, if Jim Cantore (nationally known weatherman) is visiting you need to be ready for a crazy storm.

[@slyguythreeonetwonine3172]

Yep, in 1901, Galveston was kind getting ready to be set up and pushed as "The NY City" of the South, complete with it's own "Manhattan Island". And then the hurricane quite literally erased the entire city from the map. There are still a few buildings there that were there and survived the storm. It's absolutely insane. The response was even more insane. In response, they built a sea wall, and raised the entire island I forget how many feet, to defend against it happening again. It was essentially a little sandbar out in the bay at first. Not anymore.

[@lynnaekenzington]

"What are you supposed to do." - Sand bag, board up, evacuate with food, clothes, etc to out of state hotel (shelters will be full and pressed for staff/supplies, and still at risk of flooding and power related casualties). If you get stuck at home/ride it out have enough food/water and power supplies to last several weeks without power, including a crank weather radio to listen for if you need to quickly take the hurricane roads to evacuate. (We have done this and the hotels one year. Chilled in North Carolina and made sure we were outside the areas where it would burden anyone there.

[@cloudygamessometimes]

In parts of Louisiana they are still trying to recover, 19 years later. And there are still bits of Galveston that are lost because of The Storm, we have a road that had to be replaced because it ripped it up so bad, and because there was no space left in the cemeteries, we had to bury our dead under that road, and pave over them. And for the question of “What do you even do?” there’s a reason we’re called the Bible Belt, we have to pray every time the wind picks up, the water gets warm, or the sky gets green, cause it’s either deal with the hurricanes, deal with the tornadoes, or deal with the earthquakes, we can’t escape it :’D

[@libitinawolf6240]

There are still a few houses around that survived the Galveston hurricane. You can tell because they just look old as hell. I know I read somewhere that the orphanage on the island was like knocked down by the storm surge. With all the kids and staff inside. Lots of people died during that storm. I live in Galveston right know and am constantly terrified that the one way off this island is gonna get knocked down during a storm.

[@emmawilde152]

I watched a program on rehabbing old homes in Galveston. One of the houses had been built from the wood of destroyed homes.

[@samanthalen5630]

I’m from Pensacola, Fl which is in the gulf coast right next to Alabama. When I was in 3rd grade hurricane Ivan hit us as a category 3. Our living room wall almost completely blew down, a few inches of water inside half the house, my bedroom ceiling caved in, pretty much every road in my whole city was covered by trees and stuff washed out of peoples houses(furniture, cars, boats, clothes, literally everything). We didn’t have power for close to a month and I was out of school for 2 months. There were tons of boats stuck up in the trees, full roads washed away, bridges collapsed, and stuff everywhere. Hurricane Katrina was right after Ivan and was supposed to hit Pensacola but it moved over to New Orleans, It was a crazy time. In 2020 hurricane sally hit us as a category 2, damage wasn’t near as bad as Ivan but we didn’t have power for a week or two. It’s a risk you take living in Florida

[@dylanparrish23]

My family lived through the 1969 Hurricane Camille that hit Nelson county, va, and I currently still live here, on my road there is a massive rock wall/cliff that stands about 50-60 feet high that wasn't there before the Storm, the storm dropped 27 inches of rain within hours, which led to massive amounts of landslides and erosion to happen, I recommend everyone to go watch the documentary as that video didn't do it justice when it came to damage and sheer devastation. Thanks everyone! And we did recover! 😅

[@deanneparis8888]

I live in Florida and sat out Matthew and Irma. We lived at the beach and watching the water rise and keep rising was a little scary. We were tense until the storm surge maxed out, then the party started! Irma hit while I was asleep. The noise it made woke me up, but I just went back to sleep. She caused more problems for downtown than the beach. They evacuated the beach to the downtown, then the downtown got it worse. Here the bridges close when the winds reach 35 miles per hour so you couldn’t get in or out after then. Most people don’t leave because of the risk of not being able to get back if the bridge stays closed. If you can’t get back then you can’t respond rapidly to damages.

[@RoniFromTN]

I was in Galveston for Hurricane Alicia in 1983. Freaky stuff. We hunkered down in a small church to help those who were unable to flee. Everyone around us lost power, but ours stayed on throughout the storm. Although it was devastating, it couldn't possibly hold a candle to the 1900 Great Galveston hurricane.

[@puppypoet]

I am a Delaware girl. Every time a tornado hits around Cape Lookout or Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, me and my husband know Delaware will be hit. Every time. We get lots of wind and flooding. Power outages, too. It's a great way to get out of work but it also produces the risk of tornadoes or our cars and home being damaged by 60 foot falling trees. Other than that, it's kinda cool.

[@annieb6602]

As far as personal experiences go, I was in middle school when Sandy hit the east coast. I know it was mentioned as one of the worst in NJ, but the coastal areas of the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware, and eastern Maryland and Virginia) were hit really hard, too. I'm from the eastern shore of VA and we all but lost our house to floodwaters. Our foundation and frame were the only things not damaged. My dad estimated we had about a foot of water in our home. We had to rebuild our entire house. Being a east coast girlie, hurricanes usually aren't all that bad and generally are nothing to fear; but when they're bad, they are incredibly destructive.

[@mjordan2876]

I do not live in tornado alley. At this time, I lived in North Carolina in an area that seldom sees a tornado. In the 1980's a tornado came through my back yard. It literally pulled three windows out of the house completely on the exiting side of the tornado. A large plumb tree in my yard was taken away and never found in the neighborhood. My son's swing set that was cemented 3 ft in the ground was wrung off like a small toy and taken away. Another huge tree was partially wrung off and landed across my back porch. Hail was so intense that it totaled two cars in the driveway, and damaged my roof to the point that rain water was pouring in through the overhead light fixtures all through the house. Hail was blown with such intensity that it pierced holes in the gutters, that were eventually ripped off by the wind. The whole property looked like a war zone. My son was a small child. I had him in my arms and sheltered him the best I could. Fortunately, my house was made of stone and the structure held and we were fairly safe. Damage to my cars and house totaled $71,000. Thank God for insurance. My son to this day is terrified of storms, and rightfully so.

[@whitneyhuskins3677]

I was actually in Hurricane Hugo in 1989. I was 5. Hurricane Hugo tracked all the way inland to western north Carolina where we lived. I slept on couch cushions we put in the bathtub. It spawned 3 or 4 tornadoes in my neighborhood alone and ripped up 300 year old oak trees out of the ground like they were nothing. I remember standing on the back porch and the rain was horizontal. I never even got wet because the house was blocking it. We were without power for weeks because of the trees and power lines being down. Wild stuff. Now I live in "Dixie alley" and we get tornadoes every year. In the 2011 tornado outbreak neighboring towns got hit hard.

[@dylancallaway6342]

I was in the Bahamas visiting my family and then hurricane Sandy was on top of us literally. I saw horrific scenes and still dealing with the PTSD from it.

[@Ridgeratgirl305]

My home was completely destroyed when Hurricane Andrew hit Miami in 1992. My family and all my friends were homeless for weeks. We found a home more north and lived there for over 1 year until our home was rebuilt.

[@_world.of.tyler_251]

I lived in North Carolina for a few years, the worst one I’ve been through that caused damage was when Florence hit it. It was only a cat 1 but the amount of rainfall we had and surge caused flooding which ended up damaging a good bit of houses in my area

[@helenwilliams7065]

Glad this guy included the 1900 Galveston. Some death toll estimates are as high as 10,000, but just like the Lake Okeechobee disaster, many of the deaths included transient laborers who weren't really documented. Many bodies were simply carried out to sea by the storm surge. It's a horrible but compelling story that's worthy of taking a closer look, like other commenters have suggested.

[@theevilem]

Hurricanes do happen every year. I have experienced many but the scariest was Irma in 2017. We lost our house and it was the first time I rode in a search and rescue boat when they were looking for people after the storm

[@tenaciouspadma]

i remember hurricane andrew, looking back at it, as a child, i thought those two weeks after the hurricane where the entire neighborhood cooked outside, was lit by bonfires and we camped out were the best thing ever (with the exception of my puppy going missing). As an adult I think I understand the magnitude of all of it.

[@katelandis6123]

I remember Sandy. Lots of trees and power lines down, and many people were without power for weeks. There were long lines at every gas station. This was in north Jersey. South Jersey was completely devastated. I also remember Agnes, in '75, which stalled over central Pennsylvania and dumped rain for a week. The flooding was staggering.

[@brucew7062]

Went through five different hurricanes while I lived near the coast in North Carolina. One of them hit is twice because it pulled back out into the Atlantic Ocean and swirled back onto land. The strong winds just keep going, trees knocked down all over the place. Debris all over the roads and flooding in many areas. Damage to roofs everywhere. No power for many days to weeks afterwards. No school for the kids. Everyone just comes together as a community and help each other out. We had some hurricanes that moved across us quickly and others that stayed over the area for a few days. Nighttime is the worst because it is so dark and you just keep hearing the wind and rain.

[@Triggerhippie70]

I live in Orlando but grew up in Miami and I'm 54 years old. I've been through many a hurricane. My Aunt lives just north of Ft. Meyeres. She's been trying to sell her home to relocate out of state and as a result of this hurricane, she still can't sell! Here's the thing about Hurricane's. You have a few days to prepare, living in hurricane prone areas you know how to prepare. Living my whole life in Florida we moved to TX for 4 years before returning back. Tornadoes scare me way more than hurricanes.

[@anonymousanonymous2625]

I have been thru dozens of hurricanes, as a native Floridian, but I live inland so we don't flood like coastal areas. To live without power for weeks is challenging, especially dealing with heat: 95 degrees and 75% humidity without AC can be deadly for older and disabled people. We stay prepared all the time, tarps, batteries, generators, bottled water and flashlights become impossible to get when a storm is coming. The season is long and getting longer, so it makes sense to keep supplies at the ready. In 2015 my area had multiple hurricanes just a week or so apart. After Hurricane Charley some areas lost 60% of their trees, devastating for humans and wildlife. We had National Guards to help, but roads were blocked for weeks. I live 3/4 of a mile from my mother, but the only way I could reach her was to walk, lugging all the supplies I could carry and still climb over downed trees. These storms are always horrible, and getting worse every year.

[@seblue9999]

(Virginia here) I do remember hurricanes Irene and Sandy growing up. Obv we don't get hit as hard as direct hits, but we often get pretty bad skirt-bys. I remember watching the rain and wind and seeing gutters get pulled off of houses and stuff. Crazy shit

[@MissRae_18]

I was living in Biloxi, Mississippi when Katrina hit. Thankfully we got out the night before, but my dad had to stay back since he was in the military. Our house was right by the water - so there wasn’t much left after the storm concluded. We couldn’t even get access to our street for weeks after the storm since there was so much debris. It was really hard to see all of our furniture, my bed, my toys (I was 7 lol), and our belongings littered and rotting in the yard. The only thing left standing was the brick walls of the house, nothing more. The smell was the worse part though. The whole neighborhood smelt like rotting mildew and decay for a very long time. My school was closed for half a year and we had to couch surf for a while since we were pretty much homeless. I’ll never live that close to the coast ever again.

[@reannon8643]

I was in SouthEast Louisiana during Katrina just north of New Orleans. I've never heard a storm sound like Katrina did. Not before or since, it has given me such PTSD that I evacuate for category 2s now. One moment the water was at our ankles and within minutes it was up to our chests and I am only 5'4"! My husband stayed for hurricane Ida in 2018 and he swore he will never stay again after the sounds of trees falling and believing he was next.

[@ThisIsTheWay05]

I lived through Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy. I was really young and remember being terrified of the winds. I remember seeing parts of my neighborhood completely underwater. Luckily, my house was alright and my family were all safe. But after Sandy, my dad had enough and moved us away from the tornadoes and storms.

[@tammymcc327]

My sister worked for FEMA at the time and was down in New Orleans dealing with the after math of Katrina. She was there for about a year and a half, assisting with what ever was needed. It was a Devastating storm, that brought the state to its knees

[@justky2900]

I lived through Ivan and Katrina. Ivan was worse for our area than Katrina was; I distinctly remember seeing an entire tree fly across my front yard when Ivan came through. My family was without power for over a week and the yard/garden was destroyed but thankfully the houses were all safe. We prepare for hurricanes every year, thankfully it doesn't always come, but every year we're watching the weather like hawks.

[@brittanybarkdull9007]

I grew up in Louisiana when Katrina and Rita came through. We were I'm the middle of the state so we did better than many south of us. But we lost power and water for a month. It was absolutely miserable not being able to shower or get relief from the heat. Our whole house started to sweat, we were hot, everything smelled. All we could do is use pool water to rinse off a bit. With no tv and only talking to neighbors, we felt cutt off from the world. Many people felt forgotten. Our small town churches did their best to shelter many people from the south traveling north. The destruction and suffering below us was unimaginable. Many people were displaced and many more didn't know were to go afterward.

[@ToastyZach]

In my life so far, 2004 and 2005 were insane hurricane seasons for Florida. Four hurricanes made landfall in '04, and then Katrina and Wilma in '05. South/Central Florida was definitely spared a lot of Katrina's force, but I still remember it destroying my backyard and roof. I was 5-6 years old at the time.

[@jennessabeckett3949]

Hugo, Andrew (sorta, I was in the outer bands), and we moved to Tennessee after Irma took our house. Hurricanes were just a fact of life growing up in central Florida. I spent most of the night that Irma came in sitting on my brother's porch watching trees and other debris fly by. It was kinda wild. But after 2004, I was sufficently desensitive towwards hurricanes. It as in 2004 that my husband and I lost the first home. We lost a roof and our insurance company went bankrupt, so we couldn't afford a new roof and were forced to sell.

[@artsysabs]

Dealt with Hurricane Sandy in lower NY. Lost power for 8 days. Was a crazy time. Luckily flooding wasn’t too big of an issue for us, but it was the wind that was scariest, not knowing if a tree was going to land on our house.

[@KitsuneNeko]

I live in Florida. I've been through several major named storms since my childhood. I will probably still live through several more. They almost always happen at night during their landfall and it gets pretty creepy. You're trying to sleep because the stress from preparing for the storm has worn you down... and yet you can hear the howling of the wind, sparks from a transformer or two crackling through the night, the pelting of the rain hitting the roof and windows, as well as the creaking of the walls as if your house was breathing. If you look out the window you wont see anything but pitch blackness. Perhaps the power will flicker a bit or go out completely. Hurricane season starts June 1st and ends I think some time in November. The height of the season is August and September while the summer heat it blasting around you. So the leading up to the storm is stressful... but the after the storm is the worst! Normally your power will go out and depending on where your neighborhood is determines if you are in the path of the power company and it also depends on how much damage there is near your place. I want to say the average of days without power for most areas is around 3-7 days... however if the storm is really bad it could be months without power. Moving in with my love, he told me during Hurricane Ivan his house ( where we are at now ) was without power for 3 months. The power company actually forgot to send trucks to his area so his was the very last to get power back on. So lemme set this setting. You're in a location that can get blasted by 90'F + heat... and now the power it out so you can't just turn on a fan or cool off in the A/C. You can't just go turn on the hose because they put out a water ban because sewage is in the water line... and you can't just go to the beach to cool off because of the debris. The heat without power can get so bad it's cooler to hang outside than being inside your house. Your entire neighborhood feels the same way... so generally hurricanes are bonding times with your neighbors. Cook-outs and parties are a thing.

[@packersare2646]

Born and raised on Galveston, you can still see reminders of this storm to this day. Alongside some pretty crazy stories and tales passed down.

[@jenniferjones3409]

I live less than 200 miles from New Orleans. Which is where hurricane Katrina made landfall. Even that far away, we couldn’t travel roads because there were so many trees down. There were so many houses that got squished demolished by trees falling. The wind died down some, but but not enough by the time it reached us. It was still a category one by the time it made it inland 200 miles north 200 miles from New Orleans. We didn’t have power for 10 days. And it was awful. I ran and helped with a shelter for people from New Orleans in our church. And so many people were without anything. And most shelters wouldn’t let them bring their pets inside.

[@MelNel5]

I live in Houston TX. I’ve been in 3 hurricanes to date. The first was Hurricanes Alicia (cat 4), Ike (cat 3) and Harvey (cat 2). When Alicia hit, my husband and I went into our attic to check for leaks so we could cover them. We could feel the boards under our feet creaking, and moving. Needless to say we cut that inspection short! It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever witnessed. We don’t evacuate even though we live a few miles up the road from Galveston. I’ve lived on the Gulf all my life, and unless there is a mandatory evacuation, we stay and ride it out. Except for the loss of life, these storms are really fun.

[@vickiweaver1895]

My grandparents lived in Florida, and yes they do have preparations, the windows have covers, and covers for glass doors, and hope the waters don't rise.

[@juneladd1912]

Its kinda crazy...When I lived in Big Pine Key, down in the Florida keys, and the people knew a hurricane was headed our way, the locals would go out and cross tie their boats ( beautiful, expensive boats) and then many of them would load up on hard liquor and beer, and meat or seafood, and they would BBQ up some great food and have huge hurricane parties, getting drunker than hell... Thinking, well if the hurricane is gonna hit, theres no stopping it, so if we were gonna be wiped out, might as well go out well fed and drunker than a sailor....I couldn't believe they had no fear...but the hurricane just missed us in the Keys, did some high wind damage and the party was fun as hell. Met a lot of great people...

[@TheOffkilter]

I was called up during my time in the National Guard in New Mexico and was sent to Plaquemines Parish just south of Nola after Katrina at the mouth of the Mississippi, that whole place was just one big flooded ruin. We actually were part of corpse reclamation for a bit which was one of the most disgusting things Ive ever had to do, so in Louisiana they rarely bury the dead since most of it is below sea level so graves would just fill up with water, so they have large mausoleums for everyone and those got wiped out and flooded so coffins and old bodies wound up everywhere in and amongst the more recent deaths. It was horrible.

[@slabriprock5329]

I was in school at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab the summer before Fredrick. A small hurricane named Bob hit New Orleans to the West while I was there and we had some really high tides and big waves. That was fun. A few weeks after I left and returned to Birmingham Fredrick hit and it was devastating for the island, destroying the huge lift span drawbridge and hundreds of homes. It also devastated the whole state and the city of Mobile (pronounced Moe BEE le, BTW). Up where I was we were without power for a couple of days. The way (smart) people on the coast cope is to pack up anything you don't want to lose and head inland. the nice thing about hurricanes is you have plenty of warning these days. The bad thing is sometimes they spawn tornados so that's an extra threat to deal with with little warning.

[@slyguythreeonetwonine3172]

I live in East Texas, "The Piney Woods". We don't get directly hit much, but we frequently get either the outer bands of ones that hits Louisiana, like Katrina, or ones that hit South Texas, like Harvey. Rita and Ike went right through us. It's a different ballgame completely when it's heading right at you with everything it has, as opposed to you just occasionally getting a few glancing blows from the outer bands. Never really lost anything thankfully. But still every year we just kind of sigh and shrug and hope that if it hits us that it isn't too bad. I can't imagine what it's like in Florida. Forget that.

[@Jennifer-jn2qw]

I'm from Galveston Texas. I have not been on the island when one hit, but my family have. We were there for Katrina and were forced to evacuate. They knew it was going to be real bad. That didn't hit Galveston. But my sister, dad and nephew were there for Ike. 2 story house and the downstairs was completely under water. If it had hit the way it was going to originally, most of my family would be gone. The damage was horrible. I went to visit a year later and it still looked like a war zone. Hurricanes are no joke.

[@emilyb5307]

Even if you you live further from the coast, Hurricanes can be devastating. My state saw back to back storms Hurricanes Connie and Diane. They didn't actually hit us - they swept past. But they left so much rain in their wake they flooded all the major rivers, killed 87 people and cost $200 million to repair back then in 1955. It changed a lot of laws.

[@dirtsapr]

I'm from Puerto Rico. I have seen my shares of hurricanes and tropical storms. But the worst for me were Maria 2017 and George 1996. I lost everything because of the water. There were 5 feet of water inside my house during each hurricane. The flood damage is the worst here. Where I live, we were without power for 6 months.

[@TheNighthhawk]

My son was in Charleston when he was 15, along with his mom and 2 sisters. It was ruff, The sliding doors blew out in the first wall of Hugo. While they were in the eye my son and his mom put a bed mattress in the door space when the back wall hit. They were lucky not much damage. I lived in CO and could get no info on them. His grandmother lived about 20 miles inland and had phone service and could get any info, 4 days in we finely heard they were safe, I had a 1st flight into Charleston on the 5th day But knowing they were safe did not go down. I went through many Typhoons in the Pacific, but I was always out to sea. My first Hurricane was 7 yrs ago here in SC. Wild. Went through a couple more here since.

[@robminch8592]

I've experienced a few different storms. I was in Florida in '92 when Andrew hit. I was way north in St. Augustine and went out to the beach to see the surf. There was a steady 50mph wind blowing. Luckily, I've never been hit head on by a hurricane. I did experience a tropical storm pass directly over. Lots of trees came down, power went out, and lots of coastal flooding.

[@SheaOBrien-dk9os]

My extended family was meant to evacuate Mississippi when Katrina hit but my great grandfather refused to leave his house behind. Because he stayed, his kids stayed and their kids stayed and none of them ended up escaping. The water completely swallowed my aunt’s house and my grandfather, who was trying to save things from being destroyed on the first floor of his house only returned upstairs when a piano floated past him. The water missed the second floor by maybe two steps.

[@amandamiddleton4445]

I've been around hurricanes and tornadoes. When I lived in Texas as a kid, we had one and I remember that we had to drive a couple hours away to my Aunt's house to get out of the worst part of it. Also lived in South Carolina when Hugo hit. I also went through one when I was on my senior trip to Florida. I was with a ton of others in a hotel room and I didn't want to sleep on the floor so I slept on the balcony. It was a crazy night, watching the storm. I wasn't in Mississippi/Louisiana when Katrina hit but I was down there soon after. There was so much devastation. I am from Mississippi originally and spend a lot of time in New Orleans and it was awful to see. So many people were displaced.

[@jenniferbush41]

I've lived in Jacksonville, FL for 40 years. I've been through several hurricanes & tropical storms in that time. Luckily, the last really big one to hit here was Dora in 1964, way before I was born. Funny story. During that direct hit (we usually don't get a direct hit because of the way we're kind of set back a bit), the very first (I think last, too) Beatles concert in Jacksonville was scheduled. It was the day after the hurricane hit Jacksonville, but we still had 45 mph winds. The Beatles still played & apparently, Ringo's drum set had to be nailed to the stage! Anyway, as far as horrible storms & natural disasters go, I think hurricanes are probably the ones I prefer because they can predict them, to an extent, much earlier than most, which gives you plenty of time to evacuate. Or prepare. Or plan your hurricane party!

[@Toney-e4o]

I’m from Louisiana and I can tell you we stayed for hurricane Ida and it was terrifying my grandmother’s home was severely damaged from water and wind damage. New Orleans was barely touch compared to where I live. We’re maybe half an hour from the gulf.

[@AwkwardishPanda]

Found your channel in my suggested vids today (likely cause I live where the massive tornado outbreak this past Monday was) so hi there! I went through both Hugo in South Carolina and Andrew in South Florida. My dad worked in a Miami Beach hotel, and it was flooded to the 5th floor. His best friend's house cracked in 1/2 and rolled over, it looked like a giant teacup in his front yard. I think the worst part of Andrew was that the wrong areas were told to evacuate. It took a steep turn south very suddenly hours before lanfall, it was wild. I've been through several others but those two were the two most I've been in.