state & country questions

Thought it might be cool if we had a thread where we ask each other questions about where we all live...we might learn something.
I will start..db..do buisness' in canada accept us money?

From what I know, at least some businesses near the border accept US cash. I believe that American credit/debit cards work anywhere in Canada as well. As for cash in the rest of Canada, I'm not too sure - haven't tried.

Funny enough, it makes no difference here whether change given is in US or Canadian pennies. They're both discs of copper and whatever else is in them. (or at least they were - our government has discontinued the penny)

So I will ask anyone in the southern US: what's the worst weather storm you've been through? (tornado, hail, sand/dust, or just plain thunder)

I'm not from what most consider Southern US - St Louis - but when my wife and I first married we lived in southern Missouri, so that counts.

Anyway, we had a tornado come through town one night. IT was about 10:30 and the rain picked up, the wind blew and when lightning flashed the sky was a weird color. When the warning siren went off (it was right outside our house, we lived on a corner) I told her to get to the hallway. I drug the mattress off our bed and put it over her as best I could and went back to the front window to watch

That lasted about 10 seconds because I heard what sounded like a train or an 18 wheeler right in the yard. I jumped under the mattress and prayed while she clung to me.

The next morning, we could see the path. The tornado was one block over, touched down in an empty lot, went back up and went above our neighbor's house, our house and then went back down in a field across from us right near the train tracks.

Scariest thing I've been through.

Never been through a tornado (I live in Western Washington State, and I have never heard of a tornado here).

But I did live in North Carolina for a few years and caught a glancing blow from hurricane Hugo. That was pretty wild, wind so hard you couldn't hardly stand in it, and more rain than I have ever seen come down ever. Some streets had flooding so bad you could only see the tops of cars trapped in the water. And we were just on the edge of the hurricane.

Southern California... earthquake country. Rather be in a quake than a tornado anyday.

1992 earthquake in Landers. Happened at 5am on a sunday morning and despite the massive damage from the 7.5, only one death was recorded.
It was the thousands of aftershocks that had everyone on edge for the next month.

We went to the epicenter and took pix of where the fault slipped. Pretty awesome.



Pictured left to right is an old friend, my brother and my Dad. This picture was taken only 10 miles from my parents house (which was trashed) and 20 miles from where I lived at the time.

I can't say that I have been through any really really bad storms.

The scariest weather I can remember, for my part, is a couple summers ago with a wild thunderstorm…

My brother and I were home alone, because my parents went for a picnic at our cottage with my dad's coworker (who happens to be my biology teacher). The power went out, as it tends to do in thunderstorms. To make matters worse, what with all the wind and rain, we'd been painting some of the doors outside and had removed a couple windows. Obviously the cardboard blew out very quickly, and my brother went outside for 10 seconds to try and replace it - he was drenched when he came back in. Worse yet, the front door didn't shut properly and it kept blowing open, so my brother made me fetch some weights from downstairs to keep it shut.

Meanwhile in Québec, where our cottage is, the wind blew a couple trees onto the access road right in front of them, as they were leaving. No one was hurt, but they brought the cars back onto the beach and left them there until the weather subsided. After that, they cut their way out with a couple of axes that were in the shed. Besides the tons of fallen foliage, the other damage was my dad's canoe - the wind had lifted it and hurled it against a tree. It's still sea-worthy, but the edge needed a bit of fixing.

So yeah. I was only 14 and kinda nervous, but not scared, I don't think. Funnily enough, the next week we had family from France visit the cottage, and we showed them all the debris.

Thankfully, the weather in these parts isn't always bad, but when it is, it isn't that bad. The Great Lakes slow any tropical storms that might be incoming, and we're not located in mountains or plains either.

That must be very scary, earthquakes, tornadoes.

danielbandfan wrote:

So I will ask anyone in the southern US: what's the worst weather storm you've been through? (tornado, hail, sand/dust, or just plain thunder)

Hurricane Frederic
I was only 9 years old at the time so it was really freaky for me. The wind was blowing so hard it was making the front door whistle. I even stood outside in the eye of the storm. Then had to go back inside while enduring the whistle again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Frederic

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/?n=frederic

http://interactives.fox10tv.com/photomojo/gallery/4233/84888/remembering-hurricane-frederic/evacuation/

After being through several tornado, floods and blizzards the worst experience for me was the ha-boob sand storm we went through last year. The sand was so thick and heavy that it blocked out the sun and it became completely dark out side but it was a reddish sand tint to the darkness. This was around 4 in the afternoon. You could hear the sand hitting and pitting the outside walls and the windows. We had to use wet wash rags up to our faces to breath through. As it got near the end the darkness started to lift and the sand and dirt looked like snow falling out the sky. It left sand drifts all over town. It was crazy scary.
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Next question...guilty/forgiven,
Has it always been so expensive to live in California and is all of California very expensive.