Big Earthquake

[ratto]

Al,

Good to know that you're OK. This reminded me about the earthquake when I was still young. My mother had to pull my sister and I under the dinning table when the whole building started shaking because it was already too late for us to ran out. There was also so called the "light of death" outside of window, blue hue color. Now I guess it was probably due to short of high voltage power transformers/lines.

Take care.

 

[eytonxav]

Glad the T-Al family is all right. I've experienced two earth quakes, both several years ago. One in Ridgefield, CT and the other in the Black Forest of Germany and each one about knocked me out of bed.

When mother nature speaks, people listen, regardless if its an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, huge snow fall or draught.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Here in Lima we tend to average 50 or so a year. Most are in the low 4's and barely noticed. Last night at 11:45 we had a 4.9 right off the coast of my condo. I was asleep, though my wife woke me as she and my son bolted for the door (where the emergency kit is). My two biggest experiences were a 7.0 & 8.0 about 100 miles south and they really got my attention!

 

[Dreamer]

Glad to hear everyone and everything is fine. I have never experienced an earthquake, even though I lived in CA for a short while when I was a kid and we travel to San Diego to visit DD and her family. I would not mind experiencing a teeny tiny one, as long as no one and no property was hurt. I think that it would be such a strange experience.

 

[Bluemoon]

Many year ago I experienced my first (and only) earthquake in Bangkok. Being a New Yorker my first thought was that it was just the subway passing underneath the hotel then I looked up and saw the 20' long x 10' wide crystal chandeliers swaying like a tree in a wind storm.

 

[Major Tom]

My first earthquake was in Los Angeles in Oct 1987. I was dropping my (then) wife off at work and was parallel parking the car in front of her office building. The car in front started to move slightly which seemed a bit weird, as I knew I hadn't hit it. I put the car into reverse to finish parking and as I looked, noticed that the car behind was shaking too. It didn't make any sense as I knew I hadn't touched it all - my parking wasn't THAT bad. Then I looked at the office building, saw all the windows moving slightly and realized what was going on.

When the 1989 Loma Prieta quake happened in San Francisco, I was living in Reno and we even felt it there.

Then came the 1994 Northridge quake in Los Angeles. It woke me up at 4:31am and almost instantly, I knew what was going on. I jammed myself under the bed in order to ride it out and was having a thoroughly good time until after the shaking stopped, at which point I started wondering where my glasses were. It was then I remembered that I'd slipped them under the bed before nodding off the night before, and slowly pulled a bent pair of spectacles out from underneath me.

Bending my glasses back into shape and fitting them to my face, I padded outside in slippers and pajamas to see one of the neighbors in a daze. He was wandering around declaring loudly that he needed to find the gas valve so he could switch it off. Trouble was that he was lighting his way with a few candles stuck to the lid of a cookie tin. "ED!" I yelled, "Blow those candles OUT!" It was only later we found out that at the time his kidneys were failing, which I'm guessing was the cause of his increasingly odd behavior.

Apart from the danger to life and property, earthquakes as a phenomenon are great fun to experience.

Glad you're OK Al.

 

[ls99]

When I w*rked in the Earthquake Business, if women asked about what I do, my line was: I make the earth move.

Glad all is well in the T Al neighborhood.

 

[Nords]

It's amazing, that site shows the earthquake even before the shaking has stopped. It took a few minutes for it to fill in the Richter info, but the quake itself is there in seconds.

They do that so that the surviving scientists have the data before the building collapses on the geology staff...

We use a similar motivational technique over here. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center recently moved to a brand-new building: on the ground floor on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. When the surge rolls in from the south, guess where the focal point is going to peak out.

 

[Gumby]

When I w*rked in the Earthquake Business, if women asked about what I do, my line was: I make the earth move.

So I guess you were the one who inspired Carole King . . .

 

[bruce1]

Scaier is the one you have had least experience with. Mother nature is not to be taken lightly in any form or location.

I would agree but I have been in a tornado and on the cleanup crews for tornadoes and have no experience whatever with earthquakes and I am still very scared of tornadoes.

 

[tightasadrum]

Give me tornadoes any day. I've been in two quakes, one in San diego and one in Anchorage. Both were small, and weird to my unaccustomed senses. Didn't know what was happening until it was all over. With tornadoes you just need a good place to hide.

 

[Midpack]

In a few weeks, I'll be trading tornadoes for earthquakes. I don't know what's scarier...

You left out (East coast) hurricanes!

 

[Purron]

Here's a picture of the damage we experienced from the big 5.8 here in Virginia. Seriously though, some people did have some damage from that quake including some friends of ours in central Virginia. As I child, I lived in the Philippines (Clark Air Force base) and we had some doozies.

 

[ls99]

So I guess you were the one who inspired Carole King . . .

Don't know. Never met her.

 

[TromboneAl]

Here's a picture of the damage we experienced from the big 5.8 here in Virginia.

What happened to the person who was in the chair?

 

[Purron]

What happened to the person who was in the chair?

Turned into a toady frog. Happens in Virginny.