Anna Posyniak‑Dutka Survivors’ Accounts

A) Hurricane Katrina

We followed the news and we knew it was going to bring heavy rainsheavy rains [heavy rain]heavy rains and damaging windsdamaging winds [damaging wind]damaging winds. It formed over the Bahamas and was picking up moisturemoisturemoisture and heatheat (noun)heat. On 24th August it was officially qualified as a tropical storm and was given the name, Katrina. The next day it hit the coast with extreme power and it grew into a Category 1 hurricane. It means that by that time its speed was twice as big as the day before and it was dangerous to walk outside. By the time Katrina made landfallmade landfall [make landfall]made landfall in Louisiana, it was a Category 3 hurricane. Apart from powerful winds, it brought torrential rainstorrential rains [torrential rain]torrential rains which contributed so heavily to the level of destruction we experienced. We lost all our possessions. Although the Southwest had been our home for decades, enough was enoughenough was enough [enough is enough] (idiom)enough was enough. We moved to a place where we don’t have to run for our livesrun for our lives [run for one’s life] (idiom)run for our lives every hurricane season.

B) Bhola CyclonecycloneCyclone

It was over 50 years ago, and I was only a teenager at the time, but I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night remembering the events of those days. Now Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, was hit on 12 November 1970 by the world's deadliest tropical cyclone, later named Bhola, which killed up to 500 thousand people and caused catastrophic damage. A storm alertstorm alertstorm alert had come through the radio warning people about the Red 4 storm coming. Many people ignored it as they were used to the older, 10‑point scale, in which 4 did not sound serious enough to take sheltertake sheltertake shelter. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more than serious. It took years to rebuild the whole area. An interesting fact is that this enormous tragedy contributed to the formation of the modern Bangladesh state. A civil warcivil warcivil war that broke outbroke out [break out]broke out soon after the cyclone and one of its causes was people’s reaction to the lack of adequate alert systemlack of adequate forewarning systemlack of adequate alert system that could give people a chance to prepare for such events.

C) Tri‑State Tornado

My family comes from Illinois and my grandma, who passed awaypassed away [pass away] (phrasal verb)passed away 5 years ago, kept telling us this story about a giant tornado that swept throughswept through [sweep through] (phrasal verb)swept through half of the United States when she was young. I always thought she blew things out of proportionblew things out of proportion [blow things out of proportion]blew things out of proportion but then I decided to check this story and that’s how I found out about the Tri‑State Tornado which hit Missouri, Illinois and Indiana in 1925. The magnitude of that event was truly spectacularspectacularspectacular and no wonder it etched so vividly into my gran’s memory. It was exceptionally large, with winds exceeding 300 mph. As I learned, it continued devastating everything on its way for 3.5 hours, which is also rather unusual, as tornadoes are rather short‑lasting phenomena. It killed 695 people which was a record for a single tornado.

D) Super Typhoon Yolanda

I know one thing, after what we experienced in the Philippines in 2013, I will never ever go on holiday to a place affected byplace affected byplace affected by typhoons. It got a name – Yolanda – and two days before hitting the Philippines it was categorised as a super typhoonsuper typhoonsuper typhoon. Inexperienced and not really understanding what was going on, we followed the announcements of the local authorities and we were evacuated with other inhabitants further inlandinlandinland. We always had our backpacks with us, packed with our essentialsessentials [essential]essentials, such as passports, some cash, phones and food, all ready if we had to escape. We spent that day with other people evacuated from the coast in a school. I will never forget two things – the howling windhowling windhowling wind and the scale of devastationscale of devastationscale of devastation we saw when we were finally able to leave the building.

1 Źródło: Anna Posyniak‑Dutka, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.