I've lived in storm-heavy areas, pretty much all my life. We've gone through a few hurricanes, back when I lived in Houston, Texas - as well as a couple of nearby tornadoes (never any direct) hits), here and there. I moved to Georgia in like '92-'93, about a year after their big blizzard, and saw real snow, for the first time. Since then, I've been here in Florida, where hurricanes are so common, we've started to think of them more as temporary house guests, than natural disasters.
I remember one tornado, in particular, which was actually in Georgia, back in maybe '93. It was a few miles away, but we sat out on the balcony of our apartment complex and just watched it. I know I've been through some pretty bad hurricanes, but the worst direct hit that I can think of, recently, was hurricane Charlie, back when we had that quadruple punch in 2004. I can't remember what Charlie came on shore as, but he was still a Cat 1 or Cat 2, by the time he came all the way up the mainland to Deltona. The trees all the way up the I-4 corridor (which includes my neighborhood) are still twisted and have a distinct, uniform lean to them. Our power was out for about 4 days, after Charlie. Then, as soon as we got our lights back on, Frances hit, and we lost power for another week. Losing power in Florida - during the hot, rainy season - sucks. Let me tell you. A normally 1/2 mile drive to the store turned into a drive into a whole 'nother city, just to get ice.
Orlando is the 'lightning capital of the world,' and I've seen some incredible lightning storms, but the worst I've ever seen was back when my daughter was about 7 (I think), and I was driving her back to her mom's. It was bad enough that it was night time, and the rain was making things really hard to see, but the lightning was so frequent that it was literally like a strobe light, going off in the dark. It was blinding, and made it so hard to drive that there was a good mile's worth of cars pulled over to the shoulder of the highway, simply because it was impossible to drive in those conditions.
I don't know if smaller incidents involving nature qualify as 'natural disasters,' or not, but I've also very nearly been struck by lightning, and been in a tornado watch and had a microburst drop down on me while at a gas pump. (Scariest thing ever. Lol.)
