When I was very young we lived outside of Detroit, MI. Tornadoes absolutely terrified me. Thunder and lighting were not really a big deal to me, but a green sky and angry clouds could keep me glued to the television. Especially those boiling mammatus clouds. Eerie.

I can remember the Emergency Broadcast System sounding their attention alarm on the television, interrupting whatever I was watching. The weatherman would appear in front of a map of the state and point to the counties that were in danger from severe storms and tornadoes and he named them off. He warned all of his viewers of the dangers associated with tornadoes and hail and urged everyone in the weather system’s path to seek safety immediately. Afterwards, a screen crawl would continue the warning on the network stations.

For the life of me, I could never remember which county we lived in and always had to ask my mother where we were. If the weatherman mentioned Wayne County in the list of counties to be decimated by this evil monster, I was totally freaked out. I would go from window to window looking at the sky. I just knew we were gonna be goners. I watched the clock like someone waiting to get out of prison. When the warning expired I was relieved and tired. Stress like that takes a lot of energy.

I’m much older now, and, I hope, a bit wiser. Storms don’t scare me as much, and I’ve developed more of an interest and fascination in super cells, mammatus clouds, and severe weather.

In spite of all my childhood fears, I never actually saw a tornado. I saw a funnel cloud in Milwaukee years later. But I’ve seen what tornadoes can do. They have awesome and destructive power.

Earthquakes have a similar ability to affect my life, now that I live in Southern California. I’ve felt a few that rumbled through, but I missed the Easter Earthquake in April of 2010. It was a 7.2 trembler. 

We were in Tucson when this happened. I had two new puppies, Chihuahuas my wife had given me for my birthday just a few months before, Cassiopeia and Cepheus. We had them in a large pen in the center of the living room. When we heard about it, we had someone check our house. I was most concerned about the large picture window that was also in the living room. The house was secure. My puppies were safe. We were much more blessed than a lot of people we know. They suffered some significant losses. Mobile homes were shifted off of their risers, and had gas and water leaks.

When we got back, we didn’t encounter the destruction we thought we probably would. The freezer in the garage was moved away from the wall about 18 inches and the eight foot, solid oak pool table was no longer square in the middle of the room. In the bedroom we prepared for my mother-in-law, two things had fallen off of a shelf and nothing broke. In fact, the only thing that broke was a jar of Worcestershire  sauce that fell out of the pantry. A bunch of plastics fell out of the kitchen cupboards and a lamp or two fell, but none of the televisions were lost. It took us maybe three hours to put the house right and you couldn’t tell anything had happened.

Right now, if it doesn’t register above a 3.0, I won’t even feel it.

Earthquakes can happen at any time. There’s no season when then are more or less likely.

While tornadoes can also happen at any time, there is a season in which they are more prevalent. The 2017 season has just begun and it’s already off to a near record start. While year to date totals are not record-breaking, they are well above average. 

You can predict with pretty good accuracy when a tornado is likely to form and track it to send out warnings.

Not so with earthquakes. We don’t have the technology to predict those yet.

All things being equal, however, I much prefer earthquakes to tornadoes. At least where I live here in the desert. If you’re in a mobile home and a tornado come through, unless you have an underground shelter, you’re screwed. Earthquakes can destroy a mobile home too, but all you have to do is go outside and stay away from anything that might fall on you.

I’ve tried to prepare for a big earthquake. We have a lot of food and water stockpiled, including a 30 day supply of freeze-dried food from Legacy, a fire pit, gas grill, wood, cast iron everything, a big emergency medical kit, two-way radios that are good for up to 36 miles, and a whole box of other things I haven’t listed. I’m sure I’m missing a few things as well.  It would be smart for me to get a large tent, camping furnishings in case our house becomes uninhabitable, and a generator. I have a big  enough fenced in yard to pitch a 10 person tent without crowding, and then some.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a comprehensive checklist HERE, and there are countless others published by government agencies and prepper groups.

Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes, and other natural or man-made disasters can all happen in the United States. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) doesn’t have to be born on the back of a nuclear explosion high in our atmosphere, although it could. Our own sun puts out mass coronal ejections that can, if  powerful enough and on target, overpower and render useless our satellites and knock out power in large regions. 

You don’t have to be a prepper, you just have to be prepared.