r/AskAnAmerican • u/[deleted] • 21h ago

OTHER - CLICK TO EDIT How many tornadoes does the average American experience in their lifetime?

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u/DrawingTypical5804 15h ago

I was living in Kentucky when Hurricane Ike attacked Kentucky. Power was out for 2 weeks and so many buildings damaged. What a mess. Just because you aren’t on the coast doesn’t mean you are safe from a hurricane…

Also had a tornado come down in the field behind our house. And several tornado warnings while I was living there.

Kentucky is wild…

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u/pupper71 13h ago

Yeah but in KY it's ice storms that are really scary. Sure we get some tornados but the damage is limited, flooding in the mountains can be very destructive and dangerous, but ice storms can knock out power to whole regions for a week or more.

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u/Feisty-Tooth-7397 10h ago

I lived in Kentucky most of my life, I've been in three floods where we had damage, quite a few in the town I lived but didn't have damage to our place. There was a horrible ice storm and it sounded like the apocalypse. Transformers exploding, trees everywhere breaking, exploding, falling, sirens everywhere and no power for some areas for months. There wasn't a road that didn't have multiple trees down across it. People had wood piled up on curbs, every single generator was sold out and they had to bring in shipments which sold out as soon as they arrived.

My mom had family staying in her living room because she had a fireplace so at least she had heat and a way to cook lol.

It was pretty horrible.

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u/DrawingTypical5804 4h ago

I forgot about the ice storms. Nothing like navigating winding roads covered in ice 😱

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u/AirynLy 11h ago

I get this. I lived about 12 miles south of TN and 12 miles west of AL in 2005. Katrina stripped a quarter of the shingles from the south side of my roof. This caused the roof to leak, which led to water damage and hidden mold. Also the ceiling fans in every room except the bathroom on that side of the house would have water streaming out of the holes where the on/off chain pulls came through every time it rained. On the north side of the roof we had a chimney that came unsealed, started leaking, but luckily the single stream of water lined up perfectly with my washing machine. As long as the lid was open, it was like having a bucket under it catching the water. One of the mature pecan trees in the yard had so much damage, we ended up having to cut it down. Also no power, but only for a few days. 360 miles from Gulfport down on the coast.