What is the worst weather disaster you ever personally experienced? | Page 2 | The Boneyard
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What is the worst weather disaster you ever personally experienced?

prankster said:
1972 Bermuda Race.

You can look it up if you wish.
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And now for some context: 48 foot sailboat. Middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Tail end of Hurricane Agnes.

In the Gulf Stream. (Bermuda Triangle, too. Scary place!) Winds, a sustained 55 knots, for 3 days, with higher gusts, and occasional excursions above 60 knots. Winds at the finish, reported by some boats, at 70.

Waves 20 to 30 feet high. Real big waves! Smashed right in to some of them, the boat fell off some of the other ones.

Heard it described as driving a tractor trailer into a brick wall 3 or 4 times each minute. For days! (Cue the Edmund Fitzgerald: "Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.")

By far the worst storm I ever sailed in. Hope I never sail in one so bad ever again.

Oh, and as the saying goes: You can't walk home from a boat ride.
 
OviedoFLHusky said:
"Southern New England Ice Storm," also known as "Ice Storm Felix," 1973 - outside, it looked like a beautiful frozen fairyland; but it was so cold that my family all slept in the living room fully clothed, in our sleeping bags next to the roaring fireplace.

Blizzard of 1978 - was attending UConn at the time; someone somehow got a keg and we had a dorm party, with screenings of "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles."

In Florida: Charley/Frances/Jeanne, 2004 (everyone I knew had storm PTSD after Jeanne); Irma, 2017; Ian, 2022; Milton, 2024; a few tropical storms; and FL's costliest hailstorm, March 1992, which put a bunch of dents in my car.
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We lost power for over a week in the 1973 thing
 
NJHusky said:
Having a portable generator comes in handy and is a good cheap investment even if you only need to use it once or twice every few years. You can get an electrician to wire a bypass breaker so it connects right to your main breaker panel, but only powers necessities. Way better than running 10 extension cords.

When Sandy hit NJ in Nov we had no power at bedtime. I assumed it would be on in the am, but when it wasn’t at 6am went to Home Depot and got one of 4 generators left. I probably used it 4-5x after that

Was able to power the entire house (including heat) so our house became the place for family for almost a week. The only time generator shut down was when my Father in law insisted on having toast…shut down the entire house electrical. Last time he asked for toast.
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Correct - an electrician can do exactly this but make sure they also install a safety interlock switch so when the power comes back on you don't fry the generator (or electrocute a linesman).

If you wanna be nice to your neighbors, get an inverter-generator - wayyyyy quieter and safer on your electronics.
 
Went through Hurricane Bob while vacationing in Cape Cod. Luckily it hit Truro at low tide. Was actually down on the beach with 100+ winds. Because of the way the end of the Cape curls, the wind was coming directly off the water and there were no boats or anything in sight. They were all out of that part of the bay well in advance. You would have to stand/walk at like a 60 degree angle to keep from going over. I remember watching the roof of a big timeshare lift up, break apart and blow away like little matchsticks, and then the brick wall of a hotel just get blown away. Walking the path back to the cottage we were renting, my brother almost got killed by a screen door that ripped off the neighboring cottage, flew like a frisbee clipping his hair. We were inside for the rest of the storm after that. We didn't have power for the next week I believe.
Went through Ernesto down here in Virginia.
And actually drove through one of the 1989 (I think) tornados. She was driving and pulled the car over. We were on our way to the movies in Torrington. The car started sliding sideways on the side of the road in Litchfield.

I also remember a blizzard in the early 90s when I was in high school. I lived in Morris and we got right around 4 feet of snow. The funny thing is my grandma lived in Oakville and just that little change in elevation and distance, and she got like 14 inches. I went sledding off my friends rooftop. I think we got out of school early on Wednesday (I think that was when it began) with no school the next two days and then no school the beginning of next week because they had no place to put the snow in the school parking lot at Wamogo.
 
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Spaceman213J said:
Went through Hurricane Bob while vacationing in Cape Cod. Luckily it hit Truro at low tide. Was actually down on the beach with 100+ winds. Because of the way the end of the Cape curls, the wind was coming directly off the water and there were no boats or anything in sight. They were all out of that part of the bay well in advance. You would have to stand/walk at like a 60 degree angle to keep from going over. I remember watching the roof of a big timeshare lift up, break apart and blow away like little matchsticks, and then the brick wall of a hotel just get blown away. Walking the path back to the cottage we were renting, my brother almost got killed by a screen door that ripped off the neighboring cottage, flew like a frisbee clipping his hair. We were inside for the rest of the storm after that. We didn't have power for the next week I believe.
Went through Ernesto down here in Virginia.
And actually drove through one of the 1989 (I think) tornados. She was driving and pulled the car over. We were on our way to the movies in Torrington. The car started sliding sideways on the side of the road in Litchfield.

I also remember a blizzard in the early 90s when I was in high school. I lived in Morris and we got right around 4 feet of snow. The funny thing is my grandma lived in Oakville and just that little change in elevation and distance, and she got like 14 inches. I went sledding off my friends rooftop. I think we got out of school early on Wednesday (I think that was when it began) with no school the next two days and then no school the beginning of next week because they had no place to put the snow in the school parking lot at Wamogo.
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You grew up in the same area I did, Litchfield County always seemed to get the most snow. Norfolk, the icebox of Connecticut once got 15 feet of snow in a single year, that blows my mind.
 
Sandy here in NJ lost power for 5 days and had a lake in our basement - ungood.

‘78 blizzard in CT was in April and melted pretty quickly so while it was fun hearing Bob Steele announce school closings, they were reopened pretty quickly.
 
storrsroars said:
Gotta go with the '73 ice storm. It's why I will only have gas stoves. We had all electric everything at mom's house so couldn't cook anything indoors for five days. We had charcoal and a hibachi to cook on outside - we used that instead of the larger grill because it was more efficient. We slept by the fireplace.

As I worked for the Stamford Advocate as a driver, I had to go to work. I slid sideways into a tree on the way downtown - almost pulled out of it, but my car was a '68 Olds Cutlass that had a pointed grille that extended about 2" out from the front edge of the hood. And that's what caught the tree, which was also where the hood latch was, so I couldn't open the damned hood. And then I had to drive a freaking van. Going out it was loaded with newspapers so there was weight. Coming back, the van was empty and I was fishtailing all over the place. Had to navigate around downed power lines and whatnot, but gotta say, it was beautiful - trees bent over the road creating glistening canopies.

I was at Storrs for the Blizzard of '78 (This just in: "Rhode Island is closed"). Being college kids with access to beer, it was fun, except for the kid in Crandall A who jumped from the 3rd floor window into a huge drift not remembering a steel bike rack was hiding in that drift. Ouch. My car was in the South Campus lot and got plowed in. The snow hit on Washington's Birthday, and I didn't see my car until the 2nd week of March. But once it was unburied, it started right up.
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Lol, I actually know him. He was Wheeler not Crandall. I'm pretty sure Crandall was an all girls dorm at that time.
 
HuskyV said:
Ice Storm December 1973 in Wilton. No power. Frozen pipes. Could not go outside due to downed power lines. Biting cold everwhere but immediately infront of the fire place. As a 1st grader this memory stuck.
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moved from NYC to Wilton in Dec. 73 to a house with no power
 
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CL82 said:
How do you wire it into your home? Thankfully, I had a generator for Sandy, but I was just running extension cords up to critical things like heaters, and the refrigerator, etc.

Sandy was definitely the worst I've seen. Urban sprawl in New Jersey creates a lot of light, even out into the suburbs. Everything was pitch black. I can remember driving down Route 10, which is pretty developed and everything was pitch black except for the occasional generated powered traffic light. It was eerie.

I remember the blizzard of 78 but for whatever reason it doesn't seem as impactful for me. For Sandy, we were without power for a couple weeks.
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Most generators have a 30 amp output. That’s enough to run most household items including a gas fired heating system. I was able to run heat, 2 refrigerators and dishwasher. If y have electric stoves or a heat pump it’s not going to work for that.

The proper way is how Theshot mentioned. There is a special switch that gets installed so that y either run off the generator or the line voltage. That’s what a meant by bypass beaker—not the correct term. I didn’t have time for that, but being an engineer I had a work around that I won’t publish. Lol

If y live jn the northern climate it’s really a no brainer. We were without electricity for over a week and were totally comfortable in late Nov. we had neighbors stopping by throughout the day to charge phones and warm up
 
Growing up on the CT shore and having police/fire telling us to evacuate for Hurricane Gloria is kind of a core weather trauma memory. I was only 6 and thought the world was ending. Actually turned out to be a fun couple of days hanging out at my grandparents' house in Wethersfield, and an amazing memory of my grandfather telling me that Gloria was winking at me as the remnants of the eye passed overhead.
 
NJHusky said:
Most generators have a 30 amp output. That’s enough to run most household items including a gas fired heating system. I was able to run heat, 2 refrigerators and dishwasher. If y have electric stoves or a heat pump it’s not going to work for that.

The proper way is how Theshot mentioned. There is a special switch that gets installed so that y either run off the generator or the line voltage. That’s what a meant by bypass beaker—not the correct term. I didn’t have time for that, but being an engineer I had a work around that I won’t publish. Lol

If y live jn the northern climate it’s really a no brainer. We were without electricity for over a week and were totally comfortable in late Nov. we had neighbors stopping by throughout the day to charge phones and warm up
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Yeah, I actually do think about getting a Generac and putting in a master transfer switch. I just have not pulled the trigger on it.
 
Blizzard of 1978

Freshman at Southern CT…school and state shutdown for a week. All guys dorm (it looked like we went coed that week). Was part of a search party for provisions…took beer orders and donations of ski gear and homemade sleds to haul the beer! Walked half a mile downhill and downwind to Harry’s Package store fairly easy. The trip back to the dorm took 90 minutes. Looked like a cross between The Day After Tomorrow and National Geographic . Worth it for the obvious…kings of the dorm until reopening. And, oh yes, the 5 explorers got our beer for free.s
 
CL82 said:
Yeah, I actually do think about getting a Generac and putting in a master transfer switch. I just have not pulled the trigger on it.
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Generac is a whole house generator that looks like a chest freezer. They are connected to natural gas and will come on automatically when power goes out. They will usually run the entire house if sized properly, including AC. That’s what people here in Fla have because they want ac during hurricane season. A portable generator won’t suffice

If you don’t mind spending 10k+ they are a home run. You can do my method for probably 1k with the electrician and generator cost.
 
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husky8273 said:
Ice Storm - '73
'78 Blizzard at UConn, dragged a toboggan full with beer from package store
Irene and Sandy near Hartford - no power for 5 days for both
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Some guys from our floor in McMahon did the same thing - took orders and went to th epacjake store
 
Ice Storm Felix was a trip. We got our power back in about 18 hours which was awesome. Most of our relatives did not, so we had an extra 15 to 20 people living in our house for a week.

My dad was an electrical contractor and after that storm, he had a huge generator installed. It was actually a V6 engine converted to LP gas.

One awesome thing about that ice storm is it covered several inches of snow and made everything a place to ice skate. We skated on the yard, through the woods, down slopes - everywhere for hours and hours. A complete blast.
 
ucp990411 said:
Ice storm 1973
Blizzard Larry 1978
Tropical storm Irene in Vermont in 2011 was devastating
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My events mirror yours. I was without power for ten days after Irene when I lived in Coventry CT. I had a well and filled my tub ahead of time so I could flush. Fortunately it was August. I did not lose power for the early snowstorm later in October that year.

I also had tornado warnings after hurricane Milton in 2024 after move to central Florida. I remember Gloria in 1985 causing damage in CT.
 
NJHusky said:
Generac is a whole house generator that looks like a chest freezer. They are connected to natural gas and will come on automatically when power goes out. They will usually run the entire house if sized properly, including AC. That’s what people here in Fla have because they want ac during hurricane season. A portable generator won’t suffice

If you don’t mind spending 10k+ they are a home run. You can do my method for probably 1k with the electrician and generator cost.
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Yep to all of that. We have natural gas here so I do think about it. One grand actually seems too low to me, but I think I'll reach out to an electrician to verify that. I think I'd probably pull the trigger on that even if the electrical work alone was $1000.

Good idea, thanks for the suggestion!
 
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CL82 said:
Yep to all of that. We have natural gas here so I do think about it. One grand actually seems too low to me, but I think I'll reach out to an electrician to verify that. I think I'd probably pull the trigger on that even if the electrical work alone was $1000.

Good idea, thanks for the suggestion!
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Also if y want a bit of an upgrade $$ on the portable generator they are avail to run on multiple fuel sources. So y can get one that runs on natural gas Y just need a gas connection that logistically works with generator location.

During sandy I was running around looking for gas and using 5 gallon water bottles to store gas while my neighbor just wheeled over his natural gas portable generator, connected it and turned it. on and laughed every time he saw me lugged gas cans around. Lol

Good luck
 
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