disasters

My father used to tell us a story about being in a tornado in Coffeyville, Kansas when he was a boy. His father was a mailman, and my dad told us that during the tornado, his father ran home "leaping over telephone poles." Having seen the Wizard of Oz in its first release, I mixed the movie images with my father's memories, and imagined my little grandfather leaping over the tops of upright telephone poles in the middle of Kansas. Hadn't cows and men in rowboats and a witch on a bike flown through the air in the movie? This was such a strong image that it wasn't until I was about 18 that I realized, "Hey, wait a minute...those poles he jumped were lying on the ground, blown over by the tornado."

Jan F.

When I was little, we passed through an area in Florida that had just had a lot of hurricane damage. A tall building had a lot of broken windows replaced, and each new window had an "X" across it. (I still don't know why). At the time, when I asked my dad, he said the hurricane did that. He meant the hurricane broke out the windows and they had to be replaced, but I thought he meant that the hurricane had a big crayon that marked an X on each window as it passed. How stupid of me.........

Laura H., Kentucky USA

I used to believe that the world was a snow globe that some little kid had in thier room in another universe and when the kid shook the snow globe it caused earthquakes and snow on earth.

Emma

When I first learned about the hole in the ozone layer, I thought it was a big hole in the earth. I thought people were throwing thier trash in it and when they did a big earthquake would cause it to grow bigger.

Anon

I grew up in earthquake country (northern California). For some reason I always woke up in the night before earthquakes hit, some instinct gaind from having always been there with earthquakes happening so frequently. I though I caused the earthquakes, becasue I was awake, or rolled over, or pulled up the covers. I couldn't understand how I always woke up a good few minutes before they came.

Anon

I used to believe that if I rocked myself to sleep I wouldn't feel earthquakes, and if I couldn't feel them then I couldn't be hurt by them. I may have figured out this wasn't the case, but I still rock myself to sleep!

Anon

That hurricanes were big truckers who drove around causing damage because noone was big enough to stop them. This came from them having peoples names and seeing an image on TV of a trucker getting into a truck to clear some wreckage after a hurricane hit

Grant

I used to think a "tornado" was Mr. Clean. When there would be "tornado warnings" I was scared of him. I usually slept in my parents room.

Leigh

I thought tornados were monsters,and that they called out the national guard to destroy it.

Ben J.Grimm