My story's not nearly as dramatic as yours but it's the recent one that comes to mind:

We were breaking camp to go home, heard thunder WAY off in the distance. Hard to tell how much time we had before we'd get wet so we decided to hustle and get everything in the car quickly. Luckily just that previous night we noticed our tent had sprung a leak and we decided to trash it. (This made the packing up go alot faster since we weren't brushing off the tent, neatly folding it, dealing with the poles, etc. etc. We just wadded it up on top of the car and bungee'd it, easy.)
So we get all loaded up, head out of the park and onto the main road, and IT CAME DOWN! Almost raining so hard you couldn't see to drive, I'm talking literally sheets of water, it rained like I haven't seen in awhile. Had we been delayed by just 5 minutes more, everything we had with us would have been soaked and dirty.
We still talk about that lucky timing!

My parents bought a farm right along a river about the time I graduated from college. Shortly thereafter I decided to spend a night camping in the woods along the river. That night the rain came down in sheets all night, with lots of thunder and lightning. At 22 or so years of age, I just thought that was fun, and I slept deeply, nice and dry. I packed up and left the next morning without incident.

So what's the story? During subsequent years I frequently saw that section of the farm under 8 feet of water and was horrified in retrospect!

Our camping club went up north of Pittsburgh, Pa., to a camp near Shenango Lake, many years ago. During the evening a nasty thunderstorm began to arrive in our area. A lot of campers were in tents and tent trailers, and as the wind picked up, we had to hold the tents and awnings down so they wouldn't blow away! Well, the storm raged and blew and got us all soaked to the skin, but we held on, until the storm seemed to be stopping!
by this time, our nerves were really frayed, so it was into a large tent trailer to get some "Instant nerve"!!
and, just then, the winds came back, and trees and limbs came crashing down, stuff blew away, and we couldn't see anything!
Next morning, one of the campers decided to go into town, so he drove out onto the road, and promptly came back, telling us the road was blocked both ways by fallen big trees. And then we learned that a tornado had blown thru camp during the night! Unluckily, the campers in the upper level had most of their equipment trashed or blown away, but us in the lower level came out with hardly any damage!
I don't want to go thru that experience again, ever!
by: Rustyj

Many years ago I went camping with a group of Explorer Scouts - that's the co-ed Boy Scout program for high school age kids. Explorers choose posts for things like Police, Fire, Animal Care, etc. Ours was "High Adventure" and we did things like rappelling and spelunking. Therefore we camped atop a peak in Red River Gorge in Kentucky, where we'd been rappelling off cliffs.

An enormous storm came up. Our advisor (adult) was listening to the weather radio and advised that we break camp and head to a lower elevation - the gorge had jutting cliffs that created indents like caves. We did, in a hurry, leaving a lot of our equipment behind. It took a good half-hour to hike to the shelter of a cliff cavern, skidding down muddy trails carrying our stuff. The storm hit right about the time we reached our destination. We used our tarps and ropes and spent a fitful, semi-damp night.

The next morning we went back up and very little of the equipment we'd left behind was still there. Many big trees had been uprooted. If we'd stayed there, chances are we'd have been pitched over the edge of 200+ foot cliffs.

Great stories! Anyone ever actually meet the fellow in the book or records who was struck all those times by lightning? I believe he was a park employee in Shenandoah
Natl Park? Amazing!

We had an incredible storm last summer in Maine. It lasted about FIVE hours with the majority of it severe lightning all around us. It was so loud that we literally had to shout at the top of our lungs directly into the person's ear next to us!

There was one storm many years ago around here where I was in my tent just waiting it out. The wind started to pick up and I heard branches hitting the ground and the tent. So, I decided to go to the car. I took my contact lenses and in my pajamas made a run for it through mud and a lot of water. I couldn't see because I am blind without glasses or contacts and it was raining so hard. I put my contacts in and couldn't believe what I was seeing! Hanging right above my tent, snagged on a thin tree, was a big tree that had blown over! This was the reason that there were branches hitting my tent! I was very lucky that the other tree was there to stop it! I did take pictures because I was alone and thought nobody would believe me! I drove to the park ranger office soaked in my pajamas and told them there was a tree down on my site. They told me there were trees down all over the park and to go back to my site. I told them it was hanging over my tent only being held up by another tree! They came over immediately with a backhoe. I had to dismantle my entire site into one huge muddy mess while they worked! Then it took me the entire day to put my site back together! When it was finally done in the evening my husband came back and asked me how the day went!

When I was a kid, we used to camp up in the mountains in Northern Idaho. One morning, I woke up to the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life. Scared the crap outta me! we all got up and a huge thunderstorm was rolling in. The thunder was soooo loud and echoed through the mountains and we could see lightening touching down all over the place (in the distance, not too close). It was the coolest storm I have ever been in.

This is not a camping story but my husband and his mates have learnt not to stand near one of their friends if there is a storm around. A storm came in while they were watching/playing a soccer game, they continued playing after all storms don't do that much do they? One guy was sitting on a metal cooler watching the game when lightning hit the ground about 20 feet from him, ran along the ground and hit the cooler, throwing him off it. He survived and was rushed to hospital. Later I heard at another outing the same guy was hit by lightning again and yes survived.

I've not camped in storm but one year my husband decided to buy a lightweight tent for cycling, it had no floor. The first time we used it we woke to snail trails all over him and crushed snails all over me so he decided I would sew a floor and sides in it. The first time we used it after that, it rained all night, I slept through it all while he was up bailing out the tent. Bought a better tent after that, that we used a few times until rats moved into our garage and ate it.

About 12 years ago, I took my wife & son camping on our first family camping trip and also, their first camping trip beyond the backyard. The second night of our trip wouldn't you know we here a thunder storm coming our way. I'm hoping beyond hope that it misses us because at the time my wife wasn't too keen on doing this "camping thing" as a family vacation - she preferred to do the "hotel thing". So that kind of sets the mood at the time we hear with the storm brewing. Well, hope didn't work because a doosy of a storm comes rumbling thru. The wind & the rain was blowing our tent sideways, and I'm thinking great that's all I need is for our tent to blow over. Anyway, right in the middle of the storm, my wife announces that she's gotta go - as in gotta go "pee". Out we go into the storm with me holding the umbrella and her doing her thing in the middle of the woods with the rain and wind howling. Finished, we make our way back to the tent and climb in. The storm eventually subsides and we survive the night - the tent stayed upright! We were also for the most part dry except for one minor thing - when I got up the next morning, I couldn't find my sneaks. That's right, I took them off before I climbed back in and that's were they stayed - all night in the rain. I spent the next day barefoot with my sneakers drying out over the fire. Well, the story ends there, but fortunately, the experience didn't put an end to the family camping excursions. We enjoyed many trips together and we laugh about the whole situation to this day.

Boy nothing like being out in the elements when it gets wild!

We did a canoe trip on the Allagash River in northern Maine last summer, my husband, brother-in-law, and 3 of our kids. The middle one, our son Joe, at age 13 and a Tedy Bruschi wanna-be, was absolutely terrified when a big thunderstorm rolled through. Luckily, we were off the water and huddled at our campsite, sitting on the picnic table on a bluff overlooking the river, watching the bolts of lightning, getting soaked with rain, and more or less enjoying the thrill. Poor Joe, though, hid under the table and wouldn't come out again until he was sure it was all over. His siblings tease him about it to this day. And he's still not crazy about t-storms.

Years ago while hunting in the Adirondacks we had a huge storm. We intended to go in the Moose River plains but a heavy wet snow had hit a few days before we arrived. It knocked trees down on the road in so we decided to find a spot Atleast for the night. We drove up a road and found a spot by a lake. It was midnight when we started setting up our tent. We [here's a lesson] set our tent under a large tree but not before clearing the snow for the tent.The lesson being place your tent "ON" the snow unless you want an indoor pool.The first night went fine. We stayed at this spot and hunted the area. Then came the second night.We settled in for the night.At some point soon after things went down hill[mostly water].I love a good thunderstorm. And this one didn't disappoint me. Each clap of thunder seemed to rumble for ever. All I could think of was being bombed. Because we were not packing in I brought an air mattress. What I found was its good points and bad. While not warm it was high and somewhat dry.The storm pounded us hard for hours. The next morning we went out to survey the damage.Most was in the tent. Everyones bag and clothes were wet.Outside we noticed something no one noticed or thought about before. The huge pine tree we were under was dead. If the top decided to go in the storm it would of been it.It rained or snowed the all week. We took turns taking clothes and bags each day to dry them in town.But I loved the storm