disasters

Ok this isn't mine... my sister used to believe that a tornado was a giant potato that came out of the ground. She thought that it would rumble out of the ground and roll over all the houses and things. She was always so scared when someone said that a tornado was coming. She would ask why everyone didn't just stop growing potatoes so then we wouldn't have the problem and no one had any idea what she was talking about. I guess potato and tornado sound the same. LOL

B

I used to believe that if there was an earthquake and if you were in a church, the earthquake wouldnt do anything to the church

Alex

I used to think that tornados and tomatoes were the same thing. I was watching a show about growing tomatoes, and they were showing a tomato cage. I thought a tomato cage was used to catch a tornado so it doesn't destroy anything.

TB Samurai

When I was a kid and we had a warning on TV about an "isolated" tornado, I thought it was a tornado made out of ice so I'd go to bed with my gloves and coat on in case the "ice-olated" tornado hit.

Jimmer

My dad told me that we were going to have a huge earthquake soon and California was going to break off and fall in the water. I was traumatized thinking that we were all going to die soon until my mom found me crying and set me straight.

Kimberly

I was always afraid of trailer parks because I though that is where tornados came from.

Evan

During the big hailstorm of '97 I was at my friends place and the roof started leaking, and everyone was rushing around with pots and pans to collect the water, and i thought they had no water to cook with so they were taking the opportunity to collect some!

Magz

In elementary school we were told that a tornado approaching sounded similar to the sound of a train. I took this as meaning the toot of a train- not the chug noise....I let my family in on my knowledge to warn them... but from that point on, every time my cousin and I were playing outside and a train in the distance tooted it's horn, she would run inside and lock me out, yelling that it was too late!! She couldn't open the door because of the tornado.. I cried and cried and held on to the railing waiting for the gust of wind to come and take me away...

Anon

I used to believe that hen an earthquake struck it would shake the whole world. Until there was a earthquake in Christchurch and I didn't feel any shaking :(

Anon

When i heard the word "tornado" i thought that people were saying "tomatoe" and when i saw houses flattened by "tomatoes" i thought that big pieces of tomatoes dropped down on peoples houses.

Abbey

I used to think that every tornado had a cow standing up-right flying around with it, so if there was a tornado warning, I looked for the cow.

Kellie Anne

I used to believe tornadoes had "eyes" in a sense, because my parents always told me to close the windows and blinds. So I thought if they saw an open window or saw inside your home, they were gravitated toward it and would destroy your home. haha

abby

I used to believe that earthquakes happened because the earth was farting.

Amanda

When the Northridge earthquake happened in '94 in California, afterwards when I was in my parents bed for the rest of the morning (cause I was really scared of the aftershocks and was tramatized lol), the aftershocks would happen and my mom would cough cause she had a cold at the time. Whenever my mom would cough after the aftershocks would happened, I was afraid that if she coughed again that would set off the aftershocks again.

Moe

When I was in PreSchool we got the "Stop, Drop & Roll" lesson. I wasn't paying attention and for the longest time I thought this meant that if there was a fire at all I had to "Srop, Drop & Roll." I coudln't figure out why we shouldn't try to get away or to get help. I thought I had to roll on it to put it out.

L

I used to think that tornadoes were tomatoes. and when we were in a tornado warning I thoiught we were in a tomato warning and I was very scared. I thought the tomatoes were going to smash up our whole house like a tornado would.

Jennifer

When I was little there was a small tornado by where I lived. I remember thinking of a big robot with a tornado picture on it. And when everyone said the mountains would stop it from coming, I pictured it exploding right before it hit the mountains.

Mariah

You're never going to believe this one! When I was two years old my area was going through a tornado season. The news was full of pictures of the destruction. For some reason, I pictured a tornado being a giant, red, tapered tower with a clock on the top and pointy machine parts sticking out the sides. It would sway from side to side as it moved and made a large, robotic "WOOWOOWOOWOOWOO" noise similar to the tribal ones kids make when they're playing cowboys and indians. The strangest part is, I was only allowed to watch Disney cartoons, Barney, Looney Toons, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers etc. at the time. Where this maniacal "tornado" came from is way beyond me!

Salad

When I first learned about the Richter Scale I didn't know about logarithms so I thought that it was just linear and wondered why you could barely feel a 4.0 earthquake but an 8.0 could devastate whole cities if it was only twice as big!

Dietrich Corby

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and my little sister and I were children when the big earthquake occured. A part of our school curriculum always involved natural disasters in the area so we both grew up learning about fault lines and plates. Several years after the earthquake my family was on holiday and we were driving through the small town of San Andreas, California. My sister saw the "Welcome to San Andreas" sign and promptly asked, "So is this where they keep and make all the earthquakes?" in reference to the San Andreas fault that we had learned so much about.

Liz