disasters

When I was about 8,a tornado hit my house so we had to go live with my grandmother for a few months while our house got re-built and the reporters came over to interview us. I was mad about having to move, but I was most upset about the fact that the whole time, I thought the tornado was just a really angry man that just got so angry he spun around really fast until he would spin so fast he sucked things up. There is actually a quote of me in the newspaper that says I thought the tornado was an angry man...and my whole family made fun of me.

Anon

When I was about 5 I was terrified of getting run over by a glacier. For some reason I thought they moved about 70 miles per hour and I could get caught under one and die.

glacierboy

Growing up in the SF bay area, earthquakes were not uncommon, but there was an especially big one in 1989. A few years after the quake of my friends confessed that she caused it: she had been playing with an abandoned cash register in a store, and her mom told her to stop and that if she didn't, really bad things would happen. She pushed a red button on the register one last time, and just after she pushed it, the earthquake began. for years she believes that she had caused the earthquake.

Anon

I heard about volcanos originating from cracks in the Earth's surface. I was scared that the cracks in my driveway at home would turn into a volcano, I would frequently check them to see if they looked any bigger.

Mark

I grew up in the Midwest, so every summer we wound up sitting under the basement stairs at least once due to a tornado watch or warning. I didn't have the slightest clue what a tornado was--I had heard the word and seen news footage of the wreckage they left behind, but I had never actually seen footage of a tornado. My five-year-old reasoning went something like this: "'tornado' sounds like 'tomato,' so it's probably something red and roundish... but it must also be big, and capable of destroying buildings." So, what's large, red, round, and has a tendency to smash through walls? The Kool-Aid mascot, of course! Every time I sat under those basement steps, I imagined a more massive version of the Kool-Aid mascot, stomping through town and booming, "Ohhh, yeeeah!" as he decimated trailer parks.

Despite the havoc he wreaked, I had no qualms about drinking his product.

Carrie

When I was about four my father gave me an "Indian" headdress with turkey feathers in it. I put it on the next day and I was jumping up and down and stomping and yelling in the living room. Mother asked me, "What are you doing? A rain dance?" So I said yes and kept running around and hollering and making all kinds of noise until I was really tired. Sure enough, it rained. It rained and rained and the river came up and flooded part of a nearby town, doing millions of dollars' worth of damage. I thought it was my fault, and for the next several months I hid whenever I saw a police officer. I was positive they knew who caused the flood and they were coming to get me.

Texas granny

When they said tornados I thought they were actually giant tomatos. Everytime someone would talk about a tornado coming I'd envision a gianto tomato looming in the sky. Then when they said that a barn was demolished or hit by a tornado I'd think that the tomato came down and crushed the barn. I always wondered why there was no tomato seeds/bits in the wreckage.

Anon

I used to believe that it was safe to be in the basement during tornadoes because tornadoes didn't have legs to walk down the stairs.

Anon

Because of the Wizard of Oz, I thought that everyone who lived in Kansas died from tornados. When I found out that friends were moving there, I became hysterical wondering why they would want to move somewhere death surely awaited them.

CCB

When I was about three or four, we had a summer of very severe thunderstorms, with hail, several tornados and other things. My mother would send us all down to the basement if a cloud so much as looked like a funnel, and I got the idea that this was because a tornado would knock on your front door, and if you answered it, then it would blow your house away.

Obviously we were hiding in the basement so that the tornado wouldn't think we were home.

Icefire

When I was little my Father told me that one day the sun would grow really, really big and then get really, really small and disappear and then that would mean the end of the earth. Every day after that I watched the sun rise and set. At noon the sun would be so small! I thought I was witnessing the end of the world and wondered why no one else was as upset as I was! I didn't get much sleep at night back then.

Kris P

When I was little i used to think that tornados were tomatoes with legs that walked in your house and go crazy.....Maybe thats why i had a fear of tornados?

Camille

According to my parents, when I was very young (probably around 3 or 4) I used to put my ear to the ground. When they would ask what I was doing, I would reply that I was listening for earthquakes.

Anon

I used to believe that when there was a tornado watch, you were supposed to sit down and watch the tornado.

Kay

I lived in California during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. We had seen houses with chimines that had fallen in. I had feared that my grandparents home in NY had the same problem. EARTH quake..the whole earth quakes!!

Kellie

Fireworks: sky was on fire

I was in Disneyland for the first time saw fireworks and kept hiding, asked mymom and she said fireworks, and i was like "how can people be so stupid not to call the firefighters if the sky is on fire.. and was really really terrified

gengen

When I was about 3 i was over at my neighbor's a lot because they were friends with my mom...one day i was over there and my friend Chrissy who was about 10 years older than me said, "We have to get you home...there might be a tornado coming.." I didnt know what a tornado was so in my mind i thought of a word that sounded like tornado and i came up with Potato, so for a long time when it was windy outside I would stand there waiting to see a Big Potato on a Bicycle coming around the corner and chasing us until we got inside...haha

GabZ

During tornado warnings, my brother, mother and I would go in the basement, and Dad would stay upstairs. I thought he was too heavy to get blown away.

Ryan

I used to think that the world was a person, and that earthquakes were caused by the world farting. It only seemed natural then, for me to asume that volcano's were the world being sick.

Confused

I used to believe that tornados were the giant killer tomatoes from the movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and whenever we had a tornado warning I would run through the house screaming "The tomatoes are commin', the tomatoes are commin'"

Tammy