How many have lived through REAL DOOM?

My father-in-law is fond of comparing any bad day to a bad day when he was a six-year-old in Poland: September 1, 1939.

Bless your heart and thank you for sharing some truth.
This is a challenge so much bluster from folks who are not aware of real suffering. Hope you are doing OK.

Hurricane George - Puerto Rico - September, 1998

Bad, BAD hurricane, but we were prepared because the island suffers power outages and water shortages all the time. So no one panicked the first few days without light and water, but once it extended into a few weeks, it started hitting people that things might stay that way.

I was fine.

I was ready.

Lots of people with no gas in their gas tanks, no candles, no food, no sense of what to do.

Looting started after the 2nd week even though FEMA was ready to respond and help out. It just wasn't enough.

I was at WTC on 9/11/01. Chaos, running, bomb scares, dust, debris, armed police, fighter jets flying overhead.

I've had personal doom before, but that is the closest I have come to a real doom situation where so many died.

Moved away, to the middle of a state where there is nothing around for miles... hopefully a bit 'safer' here, from that kind of thing anyway.

I completed resident evil 2 without being bit by a zombie.

My husband and I were newlyweds when we went to see a movie and come home to an inferno. We lost our house and all of our possessions (all wedding presents, etc.) in 2 hours. I wore the same outfit for a week until we could get our insurance co. to cover some of our costs.

I know that is nothing like widespread doom but when you go from upper-middle class living to not even owning a toothbrush it puts things in perspective. At least we had insurance and it was a matter of waiting on a check to start over. But my husband and I learned how to prioritize that very evening and I wouldn't give anything for that experience, as awful as it was at the time!

Some of the things I saw would be eye-opening for doom-seekers I've seen online here. Doom might be fun when you are watching it on TV, but not so much when you are stuck in it and have no way to escape. Imagine being in the middle of DOOM, then going up the road some miles to an area totally unaffected by the DOOM, next having to drive back into the DOOM to spend the night! I shorted out on some old guy in line at Publix outside the doom area because he was trying to get on my case about having too many items for the express line. I did not have too many items, but I tell you, I'm surprised he didn't have a heart attack from the way I unloaded on him. If you haven't been in REAL DOOM you have no idea what kind of a state of mind you can get into, especially when some a-hole tries to throw some crap at you. Your tolerance is stretched to the breaking point.

My doom wasn't as segregated as yours, but it was sectioned in time intervals. There were those who got water and power restored within the first 2 - 3 days and there were those who had neither for 6 months, so it was definitely something that struck me in the sense that you never know how long the SHTF for you even if you live 10 miles away from someone who gets out of it relatively quick.

Fortunately I got through it in a week, but others weren't so fortunate.

Long term doom during college back in the 80's.
Left applachia with a thousand dollars and worked my way through college. A lot of the time I was searching the couch cushions for food money. Going hungry a lot. Slept on a mattress on the floor. Owned 6 shirts, two pairs of jeans and one pair of shoes and work boots. But I made it through and now make good money. It was an experience that has always kept me humble.

happily divorced now

I always end up getting hit in the room where you get the lighter.

I had all my things packed to move back home from Key West a few years ago. Everything in boxes ready to go. 2 days before I was leaving, I went out drinking one last time, came back a few hours later and all my things were gone....

Then a hurricane came through, wasn't too bad tho, Ike I think...

So I get on the damn Greyhound bus anyway( you know what a bitch in itself that is ) give Key west the finger, and head on my merry old way.

On the way up, the market crashed....

About somewhere in Georgia, the driver kept telling us he was going to pull over, ...but kept driving.....we were getting hungry.

He finally pulled into the sorriest looking bus station I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing, where we piled out in search of fooood.

Inside...was what had been an Arby's at one point......but was now little 'ol Grandma Moses serving greens, beans, chicken, and.....and....some kind of meat-tube thing floating in grey water.

So I got 2 of those. The chicken was all gone by the time I got served anyway..

To be honest, they looked like dog dicks in dirty dishwater.

As I grabbed a few paper towels and crossed her palm with my moola, I noticed a few roaches on the wall.

They were high-fiving each other and laughing...I knew that this was going to get interesting.....

So I shuffle back to my fartsponge of a seat, complete with complimentary hair products ( free of charge, from the previous rider ) and peel open the foil to gaze at what it was I just paid for...

Goddamn I was hungry

So I started noshing....not bad.....we start rolling down the road.

Get about 1 1/2 of em down , and all of a sudden, my stomach does this weird sort of gyration.

" That's odd " I thought to myself...

About 5 seconds later a rabid weasel on meth ran through my stomach with a rusty icepick

" Oooohhh noooooo " I thought to myself.

I haven't had to use the bathroom on the bus...I have avoided it all the way until now.....they don't clean them...at all...

So I took a deep breath of the foul wind emanating from the person sitting next to me...who was eating smoked oysters and had no teeth....and gathered my pluck.

I ambled back to the room o' filth.

Explosive forces building, I quickly notice there is no toilet seat....nevermind...I wouldn't sit on the damn thing anyway.

One option here. What I call " the parrot "

Difficult with pants around ankles....

Hop up on the " toilet " grab the handles and get ready for blastoff....

...uh oh...corner...corner...leanleanlean...corner..lean lean....wtf is the driver doing..!!??

I'm all over the place here ...

...Then it hits me

I distinctly remember seeing the driver hug Grandma Moses in the bus station......his mom.....he knew...

I also remember looking up to the front of the bus before entering the room 'o doom, and seeing him looking at me in the mirror

...That motherfucker

Long story shorter....I shit on the floor, and on the edge of the toilet....and one of my shoes....

...that motherfucker...

So i got back to my seat....with shit on my shoe, smelling hair care products galore, to my companion who was busy gumming her hickory smoked oysters.

Thankfully, I only had another 2 days on the bus trip left.






That was kinda doomy

I lost my father when i was 10 years old...

Three hurricanes in 1995, an 8+ earthquake in Mexico (1985) and huge forest fire in 2003. Almost got burned out again in 2009.

lost my fiance to cancer when i was 24, she was 21.. and ever since 6 years now, its been a shitty life.. so bring on the doom... i dont care anymore.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita...less than a month apart.
Plenty of doom

Fucking hell thats harsh. You are what? only 30 though dude, shit will improve.

Cant say i know how you feel, i dont, but people in places like somalia have their entire families killed in machete attacks, at least you spent some happy years in each others company.

Life is hard, you and your girlfriend had it harder than most.

Last Edited by Atheist on 11/03/2010 03:28 PM

I lost my Juice Newton album collection.

Just a little more about my DOOM - no power for six weeks, no phone from late August till around Thanksgiving. Sometimes the food provided by the Red Cross made you ill, as it was kept too long out of the fridge. And the smells - rotting food, bodies, who knows, from destroyed houses and buildings, leafless trees and blazing hot sun with no fans or A/C. We slept on the floor to get as cool as we could. Everything looked like what I imagine it would look like after the airburst of a nuclear weapon - buildings destroyed, any tree that wasn't toppled was totally leafless with many branches off, and at night, as dead as a tomb with no lights at all - you dared not go out at night. Yet for those who had generators, a constant drone of noise that chased away sleep for those who did not have the luxury . . .

I'm 23. Lost my Dad 7 months ago to cancer. Lost one of my best friends to suicide 5 months ago. And lost my 2 year old godchild in a car crash right before New Years...

If 'DOOM' is about to happen, I'm ready for it!

Katrina - 2005. This storm did NOT hit New Orleans as reported by MSM. What happened in NO was the levees broke the day after due to the huge storm surge that filled all of the tertiary waterways. The eye came in over the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I live in Gulfport. It was life changing. I will never forget the smell.

I have lived through my own personal DOOM, by the very definition of the word. I died when I was five. Was dead for a minute.

There is a great documentary on TV atm..WW2 The Apocalypse.

First episode covered those events..

I've done it as the Tofu dude.

With a knife.

I think that those of us who have experienced REAL DOOM has a bond that no one else can really appreciate until they, too, have the DOOM experience. If you've been through REAL DOOM and come through successfully to the other side, you are truly ready for whatever DOOM might be coming. As for others who have not yet had the experience, well, we know what you are going to be facing . . . and we will be there for you when you come out of it . . .

Last Edited by LariAnn on 11/03/2010 03:41 PM

Yep...the stench and the flies.

You are insane!

And (obviously) it just went downhill from there.

Yes, there is a smell that I will never forget as well. Sometimes, when there is a bad storm here, I'll remember a whiff of it, whether or not it is a real smell or just a memory, it is there just the same. It is not something you can get out of your head. Also, I notice that when the winds are blowing hard in a strong nighttime thunderstorm, I cannot sleep as I am too nervous . . .