I see your tornado and raise you a firenado: http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/firenado-missouri-field/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-photo
Being Australian, the main natural disaster threat is bushfires. When I was in high school, the city I live in was caught between two huge fire-fronts (one blanketing the Southern side of the city and the other approaching in from the North). The sky was an apocalyptic mix of deep red and dark black smoke. It rained ash for most of 2 days and occasionally embers and lit branches would fall on our house. Generally, we were lucky as a fire-break was hastily constructed about 300 metres from my house and fortunately the fire ran out once it reached it. I also spent some time in a previous job working on the Royal Commission into Australia's worst bushfire disaster. The things I learnt during the hearings were truly horrifying. I read coroners reports for numerous people who were caught in one of the fires on their rural properties and climbed into their water tanks for shelter, only to be boiled alive. Also if you're ever caught in a bushfire do not hide in your bathroom! Most people instinctively head to a downstairs ensuite/bathroom when a bushfire approaches, because they think proximity to water will keep them safe. The Commission found that because bathrooms tend to be the most ventilated rooms in a house most people hiding in their bathrooms died of smoke inhalation while their house remained unscathed. The saddest thing was probably a couple of families that had gone out of their way to be prepared for bushfires by having "bush fire shelters" installed on their farms. Unfortunately, the people selling these things were complete fraudsters and all they did was bury a big metal box in the ground with a metal pipe coming up to the surface for air. These families hid in these death traps and when the fire front came through it sucked up all the air and they asphyxiated The Commission also heard evidence that a general rule of safety to avoid radiant heat is to take the height of the bushfires flames and multiply it by 3, then you have a safe distance. So if the flames are 10 meters high, you want to be 30 meters away. A number of the fires had flames 100 meters high (328 feet) and people were dying of radiant heat hundreds of meters away when they could not even see the fire front.
I saw that tornado as I left Edmonton on my way home to Calgary. I kept driving not knowing how bad it got until I reached home.
I was a realtor in a large city an hour or so outside of Nola when hurricane Katrina hit. I was not prepared for people showing up at my office in the clothes they left the city with only needing to buy a house immediately, spouses of cancer patients looking to find a nice home for their spouse before they pass any day, and people in various stages of crying and depression. I was not prepared for the counselor role. My daughter was in Honduras when a 7.5 earthquake hit. Seeing the morning news and not hearing from her was awful. Luckily she missed her island to island flight that evening and was safely one island over from the epicenter.
I was in California for the earthquake a few months back. I was lying in bed, watching TV and felt the bed moving. Complete with springs creaking and everything. At first I thought I was imagining it but eventually got out to bed (after it stopped) and checked under the mattress. It never occurred to me that it was an earthquake until I saw the news. I thought maybe a cat had snuck in and hidden under my bed. I've seen a few gnarly ice storms in Missouri. One year it was bad enough that electricity was out for almost a week. Trees has split in half from the weight of the ice, electrical lines were stretched almost to the ground, and I had to crack through about 1.5 inches of ice to open my car door.