Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Extreme Weather or Natural Disaster Experiences

Yes, I'm late, but at least I finally have some time to write a post!  I'm trying to catch up on my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges from Randy Seaver and decided to start with weather and natural disasters, from less than a week ago.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Did extreme weather or a natural disaster ever affect you or your ancestor(s)?  In what way(s)?  How did you find this out?  Describe one or more of the extreme weather experiences in your own life or in your ancestors' lives.

2.  Share your information about your or your ancestor's extreme weather or natural disaster experiences in your own blog post, write a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

Thank you to Marian B. Wood for this SNGF idea.

I have previously posted about my family's experience with a hurricane, specifically Hurricane Eloise on September 23, 1975.  Eloise convinced me I much preferred earthquakes to hurricanes.

I had already been through one major earthquake at that point.  My family was living in Pomona, California during the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, which I blogged about for the 50th anniversary of the event.

I returned to California to live after graduating high school.  The third major quake I have experienced was Loma Prieta in 1989 (also known as the World Series earthquake), when I lived in Berkeley.  I wrote about that experiene, which I remembered much better than Sylmar, for the quake's 35th anniversary.

Between those two I was in another big earthquake:  the Whittier Narrows earthquake of October 1, 1987.  While it was "only" a 5.9 earthquake on the Richter scale, because it happened in the heavily built environment of the Los Angeles basin, damage costs were fairly high.  Fatalities were low in number.

I was actually at work already when the quake hit.  I used to go to work early so I could leave early for band practice (for The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe, otherwise known as the USC Marching Band).  I remember that I felt the earthquake in the office (of the French and Italian Department) and had no question about what was happening.  I could tell that it was pretty strong from what I felt, so I figured it wasn't too far away.  I remember learning that the earthquake occurred on a previously unknown fault, so it came as a complete surprise at the time.

I don't recall any damage at the office or on campus, and we didn't have any damage at the house I was living in at the time.  So I wasn't affected much by it, but I have always remembered that a wall collapsed on the California State University at Los Angeles campus and killed someone.

So that's two natural disasters for my family as a whole and two for me as an individual.  I have not learned of such events for any of my ancestors prior to my parents.