Mike Peregrine
EF5
Here are a few highlights for me -
-was in New York for "the Perfect Storm" in October, 1991 ... what an unbelievable day! It was an unusually high tide anyway that day due to several factors ... but then this nor'easter blew through that was stronger in some respects to a hurricane (Hurricane Bob) that hit Long Island the same year. It became really frightening as bricks started falling off of many of the skyscrapers, killing people as they walked down the street. In the building where I worked, a massive smokestack blew over in the wind. The water level in the bay came up to the point that houses in Brooklyn were washed away! ... High rises in the financial district were flooded with water sweeping in from the East River ... it was quite an event - I doubt if I'll ever forget the howling of the wind that day.
-the 'superstorm' on March 12-14, 1993 ... this was a blizzard and a half ... the city was paralized ... it was so eerily quiet - couldn't hear traffic, or trains ... it was the first time I remember feeling that the city was peaceful ... cars were buried under piles of snow to the point that you could only see maybe a mirror or an antenna sticking up ... plows eventually got through the streets and backhoes loaded the snow into dumptrucks that made trip after trip down to the river to dump the snow into the water ... was an amazing sight
-the great floods of 1993. I came back on vacation during the height of the floods in Missouri. It was wall-to-wall water everywhere. Every road, highway, interstate was closed somewhere. To get from St. Joseph to Kansas City, a person had to figure out a trek that took them miles out of the way. At one point after I left, travel between the two became completely impossible. The water plant in St. Joseph was underwater (how ironic) - - the crazy thing was that it left the city without clean water! ... So my dad rigged up a huge tank that caught rainwater coming in off the roof (it rained every single day that summer) ... they used this for washing clothes and for cleaning and the bathroom. They had to wait for the National Guard to ship in drinking water. The Missouri River bottom became its own sea that year with water from wall to wall. Houses were washed away ... cemeteries were flooded, washing old caskets and bodies down the Missouri River ... the levy broke on the Kansas side in St. Joseph, allowing a wall of water to destroy much of Elwood, Kansas.
-the great Kansas City ice storm of 1/29-31/02 ... I had been through another huge ice storm the winter I moved back to the plains in 1994-95 ... we had lost power in St. Joe for a week in below zero temps ... but it was nothing compared to the KC storm ... people were without power week after week afterward ... not a tree was left intact. Piles of debris lined the streets while everything was coated with this massive glaze. It literally took months to recover. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/eax/SnowIceStorm.htm
-Hurricane Bonnie ... lived in NC during Bonnie in 1998 ... a Cat 3 storm ... I lived inland, but we had tornadoes at our location ... I remember watching the cloud bands roll through and the wicked rain/wind ... was an interesting day.
-Tornadoes ... won't even go into them ... we've had so many at this point I really don't know where to even start.
-was in New York for "the Perfect Storm" in October, 1991 ... what an unbelievable day! It was an unusually high tide anyway that day due to several factors ... but then this nor'easter blew through that was stronger in some respects to a hurricane (Hurricane Bob) that hit Long Island the same year. It became really frightening as bricks started falling off of many of the skyscrapers, killing people as they walked down the street. In the building where I worked, a massive smokestack blew over in the wind. The water level in the bay came up to the point that houses in Brooklyn were washed away! ... High rises in the financial district were flooded with water sweeping in from the East River ... it was quite an event - I doubt if I'll ever forget the howling of the wind that day.
-the 'superstorm' on March 12-14, 1993 ... this was a blizzard and a half ... the city was paralized ... it was so eerily quiet - couldn't hear traffic, or trains ... it was the first time I remember feeling that the city was peaceful ... cars were buried under piles of snow to the point that you could only see maybe a mirror or an antenna sticking up ... plows eventually got through the streets and backhoes loaded the snow into dumptrucks that made trip after trip down to the river to dump the snow into the water ... was an amazing sight
-the great floods of 1993. I came back on vacation during the height of the floods in Missouri. It was wall-to-wall water everywhere. Every road, highway, interstate was closed somewhere. To get from St. Joseph to Kansas City, a person had to figure out a trek that took them miles out of the way. At one point after I left, travel between the two became completely impossible. The water plant in St. Joseph was underwater (how ironic) - - the crazy thing was that it left the city without clean water! ... So my dad rigged up a huge tank that caught rainwater coming in off the roof (it rained every single day that summer) ... they used this for washing clothes and for cleaning and the bathroom. They had to wait for the National Guard to ship in drinking water. The Missouri River bottom became its own sea that year with water from wall to wall. Houses were washed away ... cemeteries were flooded, washing old caskets and bodies down the Missouri River ... the levy broke on the Kansas side in St. Joseph, allowing a wall of water to destroy much of Elwood, Kansas.
-the great Kansas City ice storm of 1/29-31/02 ... I had been through another huge ice storm the winter I moved back to the plains in 1994-95 ... we had lost power in St. Joe for a week in below zero temps ... but it was nothing compared to the KC storm ... people were without power week after week afterward ... not a tree was left intact. Piles of debris lined the streets while everything was coated with this massive glaze. It literally took months to recover. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/eax/SnowIceStorm.htm
-Hurricane Bonnie ... lived in NC during Bonnie in 1998 ... a Cat 3 storm ... I lived inland, but we had tornadoes at our location ... I remember watching the cloud bands roll through and the wicked rain/wind ... was an interesting day.
-Tornadoes ... won't even go into them ... we've had so many at this point I really don't know where to even start.
