Natural Disasters When You're Traveling

[Ed Wetschler]

I'm sitting here waiting for Irene to blow in full force, thinking back to times when I've been caught by storms etc. while traveling. What's the most memorable natural disaster you've experienced on the road? Did you write about it?

[Darryl Musick]

Was in San Francisco two days after the Loma Prieta quake, lived through plenty of big quakes here in L.A. (but that doesn't qualify for on the road). In May, we were in the vicinity of some tornadoes in Denver. Saw a funnel cloud but nothing hitting the ground, and years ago we got caught in a white-out blizzard in Utah on I-15 in the middle of nowhere.

 

I've only written about Denver.

 

Man-made disasters, now that's another story.

[Betty Austin-Ware]

Where did you write about Denver?  

We were caught in fog too thick to see to pull off the road trying to drive from Dallas to San Antonio, not much of a story there.

Made it through seven hurricanes in five years living on the Carolina coast, but the only traveling involved in that was straight out of town!  Many good stories.

 

[Darryl Musick]

On my blog, the last day we were there...just a part of the story, not the main focus. In our video, I captured the tornado warning on the radio: http://wheelstraveler.blogspot.com/2011/06/denver-colorado-2011-par...

 

[Geri Bain]

I was in Ixtapa and despite severe hurricane warnings, the resort was making almost no preparations. In fact, they set up with drinks and food a lovely huge room with two walls of glass and told all the guests to gather there when the storm hit. I was thinking of hiding in my bathroom, but the manager assured us that Ixtapa was almost never hit by hurricanes--something about its geography meant the storms bypassed it. I've since read that it is true and the hurricane we weathered did lots of damage in not-so-far off Acapulco, but didn't do more than blow a few fronds off the palapas. This is the first time I've written about it because the terrible damage in Acapulco made it seem inconsequential at the time.

 

I did write about honeymoons from hell when I was travel editor at Modern Bride, and interviewed several couples who had been caught in hurricanes. One couple narrowly escaped with their lives.

[Tony Dunnell]

I was caught up behind the Northern Peru earthquake in 2010. One of the things that really impressed me was the lack of fuss among all the stranded Peruvians. They realised that the only options were to go back to the nearest town or walk across the wreckage, and most of them struggled across with great resolve!

 

I wrote a brief blog post about it, and managed to get some nice photos.

[Madelyn Miller]

My experience was more of a national disaster than a natural disaster. I went to Los Angeles for a press trip that was to start 9/12/01. I went in two days early to stay with a friend. I went to bed late the night before 9/11 and asked my friend to let me sleep in. She ran into my room about 8am and said, "wake up, there is a disaster"   I said, "That is not a good wake up call, She said come down and see it on TV.

Needless to say, I was the only one to make it to LA for the press trip. The hotel said stay as long as you like. They encouraged me to invite any LA friends for dinner. But everyone was sticking close to home.

 

 

[Cara Bertoia]

Ed I joined. Cara B

Thanks

[Ed Wetschler]

The strangest of natural disaster experiences I've had came when my wife and I were on Barbados during Hurricane Luis. Luis must have been 1,000 miles away; we had blue skies and perfect little puffy clouds racing across them. And I do mean racing, because they were sprinting across the sky in the wrong direction: Prevailing winds are from the east in the tropics, yet these were coming from the west, drawn by some suction effect Luis was causing 1,000 miles away. The winds, in turn, pushed the waves, so on this fair and lovely day, we watched storm waves sweep away the resort's beach, boardwalk, and, finally, yacht.

[Allan Lynch]

A massive storm hit Disney World when I was there. This was years ago. Like the 30,000 other wet tourists we hit for the indoor attractions. A friend and I were stuck in the Pirates of the Caribbean for over an hour. Had I not been so hung over I might have realized we were only in six inches of water and could have walked out. Only later, when I was having some hair-of-the-dog, did I question why the "boats" didn't move, but those damn little animated characters kept on pillaging.

[Betty Austin-Ware]

We were stuck in the Pirates as well.  Good you didn't walk out as they warn you of the danger of being electrocuted if you walk in the water.

 

[Allan Lynch]

But Betty, I was going to try to walk ON water ...  ;-)

 

I truly pity people stuck in It's A Small World - imagine having to endure an hour of that song.

[Betty Austin-Ware]

It was actually a skit on SNL that made me think you'd be electrocuted so it may not be true.  They were stuck in It's A Small World and went stark, raving mad and jumped out anyway and were electrocuted.