In 1995, I was in Orlando during hurricane season, and no fewer than FIVE storms (one hurricane, I think, and four tropical storms) dumped most of the Atlantic Ocean onto the city. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but it wasn't so bad. I like rain. It was the rest of the state that sort of sucked.

In 1998, just before I left Binghamton for college, a tornado swept through the county. There were hail stones the size of silver dollars, and the clouds turned yellow and green and red. The wind was so strong that my little brother (who was twelve at the time, and quite the shrimp) kept falling over and clutching at the grass to keep from blowing away. All the radio stations advised everybody to stay inside, but the whole getting-blown-away thing was awfully exciting, so we just stood there getting blown around. There wasn't any real damage where I lived, but whole hillsides full of trees had been destroyed not very far from where we lived.

Seems like, when I was about three, my parents took me to see the damage from another tornado. I guess it was in Apalachin or something. Whatever. I was three. I played on the downed trees until my mom picked me up and tried explaining that the trees had recently been standing, and that something called a tornado had knocked them down. I knew what a tornado was, from "The Wizard of Oz," but I was still pretty confused about the whole thing.

Once, maybe around 1988, my dad was outside grilling chicken during a bad rainstorm. The storm had come up quickly, and he didn't really know how to do chicken very well (usually, grilling involved spiedies or hot dogs wrapped in bacon), so he got caught outside in the storm. Fortunately, there was a fairly large roof over the back porch, so the grill and my dad didn't actually have to stand IN the rain. As I sat around waiting for the chicken and helping my mom peel the husks off the corn, this bolt of lightning struck the backyard, apparently less than twenty feet from my dad, who was manning the metal grill with metal tongs. The thunderclap damn near gave all of us a heart attack, including the dog, who howled like I never heard her howl before, or after. MY dad was very pale after that.

There was this bad windstorm in New Jersey once... The wind picked up and these tiny little sand particles got driven into our skin as we ran for cover. I learned, that day, how exactly sand gets into THOSE parts of one's bathing suit. Shit, sand HURTS at that velocity.

...but I have never been in an earthquake or a volcano.

I'm very excited by earthquakes and volcanos.