I have experienced the worst thunderstorm in my 15 years living on the shore. My parents and I woke up and evacuated to our basement because we thought a tornado came near our house. THe electricity went out, the house shook as if an earthquake struck and we heard what sounded like an Amtrak train crossing the street in front of our house. The lightning was incredible.....Nonstop lightning for almost 3 hours. When we heard the loud roar outside, our windows were almost buckling in from the wind and thunder was so loud that I thought the rumble alone could break something in our house. This was the first time we evacuated for anything. But there was no tornado. Either it was a microburst or some very nasty straight line winds that came thruogh our area because a tree came crashing down a few blocks from me. Also parts of our shingles have torn off from the wind.
I went to bed shortly after midnight and at around 1 was in a deep sleep when all of the sudden my bed (which is next to the window) starting shaking. I then noticed the air conditioner turned on and off at least 3 times. The lights started flickering and the window sounded like it was about to cave in. WHen I saw the lightning and wind outside, I bolted out of my bed fearing a tornado was near us and my parents at the same time ran out of their bedroom and all 3 of us were running downstairs to the basement because our house has never shaken so much from the wind. We didn't see much afterwards and I managed to take a video of the storm from my house but I'm not sure if I can upload it since the quality is not great.
I am without power right now along with, 170,000 other people in the area and we don't know when it'll be back. I'm in the library right now. 3 people in our area have been killed by the storm. This was definitely more scary then exciting...but I gotta admit: If this happened during the day it'd probably be the opposite xD
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/features/f7/nearly-in-south-jersey-without-power-after-powerful-storms-rake/article_fb9b6fe2-c27a-11e1-8cb9-001a4bcf887a.html