Earthquake!

[Lyne]

Last night at about 2 AM I was lying on my couch watching TV and half dozing when my Nickie cat decided that he would jump up on the couch in front of me… Just as he touched down on the couch cushion-Boom! A great massive jolt in the walls shook! At that very second Nickie went straight back up in the air, leaping back off the couch, and when the second jolt hit a minute later he jumped straight up in the air again, poor thing. It scared both of us pretty darn good.

Apparently there was a cluster of earthquakes many miles away but this one at 2 AM was a 1.9 so it was pretty big especially for me to feel it when I was downstairs (when I'm upstairs on the computer everything shakes more in my wood frame house )

I have a website that I go to, to check on how large and where the originating location is :
Today's Earthquakes in LA and Southern California

you can put your own location in the search parameters , this just happens to be mine … a new can see the cluster of balloons on the map here. I grew up in earthquake country I guess you could say and have been in some very very big ones . and even though I've been in large ones and countless small once as I often tell people " I don't do earthquakes " because they've really shake me up …and yes that was upon even if somewhat serious .

Now of course I'm sure you will all chime in and say oh I'd rather live where there are tornadoes or hurricanes but believe you me I would not want to live in an area where things like that happen that are incredibly more damaging than the many many small trembles that we get in the state of California .

At any rate I thought to start a thread about it because I tend to want to be "with family" when and earthquake happens!

 

[Lorraine]

Don't blame you one bit for wanting to be with 'family' Lyne! Earthquakes are nothing to sneeze at. As a coastal resident aka liveaboader I am very wary of earthquakes in the Pacific region as they can impact on me via tsunamis. Glad I don't have to worry about your one Give Nickie a pat from me, it must have scared him out of a couple of years growth

 

[Miss B]

You know Lyne, it's not surprising you feel it more upstairs than downstairs. The last time we had one here, maybe 3 years ago, I felt it coming through the floor as I sat here working on my laptop, and one of the glass doors of my wall unit in the living room swung open, and wouldn't stay closed, even though there are magnets to keep them in place.

I'm on the top floor of the building, so I went to the door of my apartment, because door frames are the safest place to be, and a couple of my neighbors were out in the hall talking about it, but one neighbor and her husband were downstairs in front of the building, and never felt a thing. Just because your house has a wood frame doesn't matter. Our building is all brick and mortar, and it still shook more up here on the 6th floor than it did at street level.

 

[Pendraia]

Earthquakes can be pretty scary...poor you and poor cat!

 

[FairyFantastic]

poor u lynn we hardly get any here in uk may be once in a blue moon last one we had was about 10 yr ago so there very rare here but i feel for any one tht gets thm

 

[Gadget Girl]

I've only even been in a tiny little quake, but it does just feel wrong when the world moves on you. Even when there's no destruction (which is a good thing) I think the fact that it seems like the Earth is the one thing that doesn't move is what makes it so scary when you realize it does.

 

[Faery_Light]

I live in Missouri near the New Madrid fault.
One year we lived in Thayer, just across the border from Mammoth Spring ARK when we felt the floor jumping and moving.
It only lasted a few minutes but it was scary.
The news later said it wasn't known what caused it, it was nobody's fault, but actually it was the fault line at New Madrid.
In the 80's we had one pretty hard in STL, shook the walls of our house which wad brick, took down some walls on other houses in the area.
They are scary but the tornadoes are worse, I can tell you.
We had more tornadoes than earthquakes her in Missouri and they always do tons of damage.

 

[carmen indorato]

soooooo....are you sure the cat landing on you cause the quake or did the quake just scare the cat as you stated! LOL

 

[Alisa]

Now of course I'm sure you will all chime in and say oh I'd rather live where there are tornadoes or hurricanes but believe you me I would not want to live in an area where things like that happen that are incredibly more damaging than the many many small trembles that we get in the state of California .

Nope, not me either.

I also live in Earthquake country (Pacific Northwest).

A big earthquake, which they are CONSTANTLY reminding us is just a matter of time, will definitely be devastating, but it's not the every year thing of hurricanes and tornadoes. One thing, though, is that tornadoes and hurricanes have some level of warning (not always enough), where earthquakes typically don't have any. It's just there.

I haven't had any big quakes with a cat and sure wouldn't want to have one on my lap during it! YIKES!!!

First one we really felt (many years ago), I was at a desk that was perpendicular to the couch where my husband was lying down. He asked if I was erasing something really hard, because the couch was moving back and forth some. I said no and we looked over at the hanging light in the dining area. It was swinging. By the time we figured out "oh, it's an earthquake!", it was over and we hadn't moved. As for pets being sooooo aware of it? Our golden retriever slept on the floor right through it

Next time (1996) it was a completely different story! This was a 5.6 magnitude, where the epicenter was about 1/2 mile from our house. That was nerve-wracking!

Sounded like a truck going through the house and it felt like it was picked up and shaken back and forth pretty violently. We all jumped up, hubby grabbed the dog, and we headed for a door frame to brace ourselves in. Yikes!!!!

There were about 45 aftershocks over 2 magnitude over the next few days.

The next big one in the area was a 6.8 magnitude in 2001, but it was quite a bit south and we experienced that as a rolling feeling rather than shaking.

 

[Lyne]

First one we really felt (many years ago), I was at a desk that was perpendicular to the couch where my husband was lying down. He asked if I was erasing something really hard, because the couch was moving back and forth some. I said no and we looked over at the hanging light in the dining area. It was swinging. By the time we figured out "oh, it's an earthquake!", it was over and we hadn't moved. As for pets being sooooo aware of it? Our golden retriever slept on the floor right through it

ROFL!! Funny how "blasé" we get about earthquakes… I can't remember but I think it was the 1971 quake that was my "big one"… Because my son was born in 70 and he was in a hospital in downtown LA awaiting a surgery and I was at home sleeping in the early hours of the morning when that earthquake literally through us out of bed! We really were confused on what was going on and stumbled to the front door of our second-story apartment… Going out on the balcony we literally saw the water in the swimming pool jump out of the pool so to speak! We all went out to the middle of the street and stood there in our pajamas (we meaning the residence of the apartment building) that was the experience that led me to saying "I don't do earthquakes" because to be brutally honest about myself when my son was home (I can't remember we might've postponed his surgery) and he was laying on the changing table we had large aftershock and I went running into the hallway and left them on the changing table! When I sort of came out of my "fear trance" or whatever it was I was so overcome with shock about leaving him on the table… That I nearly fell apart. Thank God my mother was staying with us and she was right there by the changing table to keep him safe. I suppose I was experiencing PTSD.

So while I can be a little bit blasé nowadays I think if there was a really big one I'd probably lose it to be honest .

 

[FairyFantastic]

wow u all need to come live uk we dont get thm as aften well very rare really if u can tollerate damp weather ull be ok we dont have torrnados either well ive only heard of one mini one about 5 yrs ago but uk seem quite lucky compared to loads of other contries

 

[Alisa]

Wow, Lyne - that sure must have been terrifying!

FF - I live in what we refer to as the Pacific Northwet (though a relatively "dry" area of it) but I think you folks are worse in terms of rainy weather

 

[Miss B]

FF - I live in what we refer to as the Pacific Northwet (though a relatively "dry" area of it) but I think you folks are worse in terms of rainy weather

I don't like constant rainy weather either, but I think I'd much prefer it to earthquakes, no matter how infrequent they are. The Ramapo fault runs 185 miles in a northeasterly direction through Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, very close to us here in New York City.

 

[Lyne]

I could never tolerate living in an area that has so much damp weather would be northern California or the UK. I struggle with a little bit of onshore humidity here where I live now and it affects my asthma badly. It's all trade-offs I suppose.

 

[Faery_Light]

I think Missouri has some terrible humidity in the summer.
It has a bad climate all around.
If I were able (no ties here) I'd migrate to Canada.

 

[FairyFantastic]

we do get a lot of rain only thursday evening we had a thunder storm it raind tht hard it flooded a few areas tht the watrwas half way up there cars and it took only a hour to get like it i think it s call torential rain i had never seen it rain as hard as it did thurs for a long time and since thn we ve had wet weather but humid and muggy

 

[Satira Capriccio]

My first choice is Scotland :wink:

But, British Columbia is rather high on the list.

Though I lived in the Pacific Northwest my first 40 years, it wasn't until I came east that I experienced an earthquake. It was the oddest thing. My chair slide back and then slide forward. Needless to say, we all bolted out of our offices. Once we realized it was an earthquake and not our imaginations, we fled down the elevators. Almost everyone was out on the street ... which really wasn't any safer than in our offices 23 floors up. I kept looking at all the high rises and thinking ... if they all come down, we're dead.

It was apparently a shallow earthquake which is why it was felt over such a broad area. Our CEO was furious that everyone had evacuated without instructions to do so. What can I say ... it was the first time most of us had ever experienced something like that, and Broad Street was packed with people who'd also fled their offices. Not like we'd ever had any drills or instructions on what to do in an earthquake.

I was also a bit sad that I slept through St Helen's erupting. My ex called and woke me up to tell me about it. I think I snapped at him because I hadn't been asleep all that long ... and if he couldn't call me in ADVANCE ... not to bother calling to wake me up after the fact.

 

[Pendraia]

So lucky here in Melbourne...we very rarely get earthquakes and they are normally so minor that we hardly notice them and the closest I've gotten to a tornado is something we called a mini cyclone where the winds were really high and did a lot of damage but wasn't a real cyclone or tornado. We even missed all the devastation along the east coast the Australia had recently.

 

[Alisa]

I was also a bit sad that I slept through St Helen's erupting. My ex called and woke me up to tell me about it. I think I snapped at him because I hadn't been asleep all that long ... and if he couldn't call me in ADVANCE ... not to bother calling to wake me up after the fact.

LOL, no way to call in advance. That one I did hear (around here they ask "where were you when the mountain blew?)

We lived about 130 miles north of it as the crow files, at the time. A friend had called early, forgetting the time difference between east and west coast. We were talking when we heard something that sounded like cannon shots - BOOM, BOOM, BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! I remember saying "What on earth was that?" And hubby said "I bet it was Mt St Helens (which had been rumbling and having small quakes for awhile). I said, no way we'd hear it that far away. We turned on the radio, but there was nothing. Wasn't til later in the day at the grocery store where I heard it had erupted. We went down the next day to get as close as you could (outside the area they were keeping people out of), to see if we could see anything. It was clouded over so all we saw was a tiny bit of smoke coming from where we knew the top was.

Never got any ash in our area in any of the following eruptions, but have been down there a number of times since to look at the aftermath and the recovery of much of the area.

 

[JOdel]

I think my first earthquake must have been the Tehachapie(sp!?) but I was a little kid and slept through it. The first one of reasonable size that I remember was the Sylmar in '71.

We get a lot of them on the Pacific Rim and looking at the page on wiki, there are more than I'd realized (although quite a few of the ones listed are up north and I wouldn't have felt them). The all-time worst for casualties was San Francisco in 1906. The Long Beach in '33 was next, followed by the Sylmar, one in the Santa Cruz mountains, and the Northridge.