Felt my first quake last nite... (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mack]

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_267105725.html

I was up at the time and it sounded like someone did a giant drum fill/roll....

Had subtly felt a very, very small one in june but it just felt like the bed was moving but this shook the house for a second or two.

Welcome to California

Think I'll go and buy alot of bottled water now.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Here in Seattle, we are in range of earthquakes, tsunamis, and a volcano! (Mt. Rainier)

 

[Paul D G]

Earthquakes always held a small amount of thrill for me, probably because we weren't close enough to a faultline so's the house would come down.

Our first one was in the middle of the night. Woke us up and I saw the window blinds swaying back and forth and it felt like we were on a waterbed. The dog, just a pup at the time, was noticably confused.

Another one sounded like a semi truck drove full speed over a curb (and that's pretty much what my wife thought it was). i was lying on the floor at the time and felt the swaying but my wife, standing 8 feet away from me, didn't even notice.

The dog always started acting weird a day or two before an earthquake would hit.

-paul

 

[Danny Tse]

Hmmm, is there more to this?

There was the official "Welcome" to California, Dave. I personally didn't feel a thing....and I live right on top of the Hayward Fault.

Having emergency supplies is always a good idea. Don't forget flashlights and fresh batteries.

 

[Dave Mack]

Get this, guys! Tonite after coming home from a party in Oakland where I learned that this fault goes right under UC Berkeley and we live 1/2 a mile away, (VERY comforting...!) I heard a bunch of thumping outside on my walkway, (we rent an apt. in the back 1/2 of a house) and I thought, "Great. Here we go again!" and suddenly I see a guy walking outside my window with a flashlight who turned out to be a cop and they were chasing someone through the backyard! I was yelled at to stay in the house even though my wiener dog was going ape-shit and they started searching everybody's yards and I came close to getting my head blown off when I peeked back out a few minutes later! Since none of the windows down here have bars on them like my NYC apt. and our bedroom is upstairs with no lock on the door, I'm a bit spooked especially because they searched my yard for something that might have been "tossed". I'm hoping it was maybe just some weed and not a gun. At one point I heard, "FREEZE! Come out with your hands up!" Well, that was an hour ago, the police car is still outside with several others doing sweeps and they are still looking in the yards. My nice buzz from the party is gone and I am slamming a few brews to chill out. What will tomorrow nite bring? Mudslides? Man, the subway wasn't that bad after all!

d

 

[Dave Mack]

update... the police car just left. Now I don't know what to think. Did they catch someone or not? Feel more spooked. Once in manhattan there was an armed robbery on my block and within 5 minutes, there was a police helicopter overhead shining a big ol' light down all the blocks... Was very reassuring. I guess the Berkeley police dept. don't have no choppers...

d

 

[Lynda-Marie]

Rob, don't forget Mount Saint Helens, which has done a LOT more than Rainier.

My cousin, who was born about 8 hours or so before the big one on May 18, 1980 STILL gets flak from us about how he had somehow pissed off the mountain.

In fact, the latest round of seismic activity started around the time he was shipped home from Fallujah - I teased him that the mountain was celebrating - and again, when he got out of the Marines - "Yeehaw! My boy's out of harm's way!"

There was a quake in the mid to late 1990s that struck while a friend of mine and I had sacked out after a long day of errands. I heard some rumbling and felt the bed shaking.

"Wuzzat you?" I asked.
"Nozat you?"
"No, musta been a quake."
"Oh, okay," and we both conked out again.

*********************************

During the 2001 quake [the infamous Rattle in Seattle] I was working for Seattle Central Community College, and was in the last 30 seconds of my break when I heard a loud rumbling. I thought the Photography students were being unusually rowdy, but when the shaking started, I realized that 1. the students were never that much out of control 2. we didn't have THAT many students.

I had terrible visions of coming home to a flattened house, dead little brother and dead cats and dog, but with the exception of damage to the ancient chimney, everything was all right. My brother was laughing about it, and we took turns at choruses of "Shake Rattle and Roll", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," and "All Shook Up."

There were some pretty amazing instances happening at the school that I found out the next day. One gal in our office had been born and raised in Zimbabwe, were they apparently don't have earthquakes. She was in class, and felt the room shaking. Her classmates were all diving for cover, and she sat there, musing aloud, "Oh! An earth trembler." Someone yelled that it was an earth QUAKE and that she needed to get under cover.

One of the photography instructors, to the best of my knowledge is STILL getting flak about what happened. He made the mistake of telling one of the gabbiest staffers in the school that he was in the darkroom, and had just gotten to the part of the instructions that read, "Shake vigorously!" when the quake struck.

The person I felt sorriest for was one of the art instructors. It was just not her day. To start off, it was her fiftieth birthday, which did not please her. Then, she had had to take the day off, which she could not afford, to go to the dentist to be fitted for a crown. She was sitting in the dentist's chair, with a mouth full of goop and a stick hanging out of her mouth when the quake struck. The poor woman knew to duck for cover, and to evacuate when the order was given, but she spent the better part of the next hour or so wandering around with a mouth full of goop and a stick hanging out of her mouth. One of the hygienists spotted her, and took pity, and removed the crown molding goop and stick.

 

[Philip Hamm]

I live near a quarry.... I felt a "quake" today but it was really really little....

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Magnitude 3.2? That's essentially nothing.

[crocodiledundeevoice] 3.2? That's no quake.
(Magnitude 7+ quake occurs.)
Now THAT'S a quake. [/crocodiledundeevoice]

 

[Dave Mack]

True, true Dennis! If a 7.+ quake happens where I am, it was nice knowing y'all!

Poll-time... What's the biggest number quake everyone here felt?

d

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

My biggest quake was the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, whose epicenter was under Mt. Loma Prieta about 8 miles south of my home. Magnitude reported variously but quoted as 6.9 at the California government site www.consrv.ca.gov/CGS/rghm/quakes/eq_chron.htm

My great-grandfather, Allessandro Dahmer Drew, was a well-known doctor in San Francisco during the 1906 SF quake (7.8). Do I get bragging rights from him? :b

 

[Patrick_S]

The largest one I have lived through was the 89 earthquake. It was the largest quake to hit the Bay Area since 1906 and measured 7.1.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

By the way, the Richter scale is a log scale. The difference in energy between a magnitude 3 and a magnitude 7 quake is about the same as the difference between a large firecracker and a small atomic bomb.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Hopefully someone here at HTF survived the great 1964 Alaska earthquake - a magnitude 9.1 monster - and can tell us the story.

 

[Scott_lb]

I felt a few quakes during my time in Southern California, but only one really stands out in memory (the quake in October '99 in Joshua Tree). I think that quake was around a 6 or 7, however, we were so far away (near Pasadena) that we felt it as a 5 or something. That was one of the oddest feelings of my life - far scarier than severe thunderstorms!

 

[RobertR]

The biggest one for me was the 1994 Northridge quake. At a magnitude of 6.7, it's considered the costliest quake since the 1906 San Francisco quake.

 

[Danny Tse]

I survived the 1989 Loma Prieta quake as well.

 

[MarkHastings]

I don't mean to make fun, but you wouldn't be able to post if you didn't survive.

Imagine: "Yeah, I remember when I died in the 1989 earthquake."

 

[Carlo_M]

Was it Paulie in Goodfellas who said to a young Henry Hill "Hey! He popped his cherry!"

Welcome to the club, Dave! (although a 3.2 is kind of a wimpy intro to the club )

Personally I was in the 1989 SF and the 1994 Northridge quakes. 70 miles from epicenter in '89, but only 20 or so in '94.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Hey, any quake on planet Earth is pretty wimpy compared with what can happen as a quake elsewhere:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200509...BhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

[rant]In the first 200 milliseconds, it released the amount of energy that our Sun releases in 250,000 YEARS.[/rant]