LA Quake - 5.0

[sudsmaster]

Just heard that a 5.0 earthquake struck Los Angeles.

Hope everyone is ok.

5.0 is not a major quake, but it's big enough to wake you up and make one just a little nervous.

 

[hydralique]

Mostly made some noise here in the San Fernando Valley. I was standing in front of Suzie (my turquoise '67 Frigidaire Imperial) trying to decide between leftover enchiladas and equally leftover Chinese lamb soup when there was a little shaking and lots of noise. I quickly closed Suzie's door and backed away, knowing that she weighs quite a lot, but happily nothing fell over and I was soon able to get back to my dinner (decided on the enchiladas, yum).

 

[jeffg]

The USGS downgraded it to a 4.7. No reports of damage last I heard.

 

[sudsmaster]

Actually it was initially reported as a 4.7, then upgraded to a 5.0, then revised back down to a 4.7.

Go figure.

Glad to hear that nobody is hurt and damage appears minimal.

The quake was on the same fault as the '94 Northridge quake.

 

[tbolt25]

8.25 earthquake

I wonder how big an 8.25 earthquake is?

 

[hydralique]

tbolt25 . . .

Remember that the earthquake magnitude measurement system is logrithmic in nature, so an 8.25 would be absolutely devastating. I experienced the Northridge quake, which was only a 6.7. I wasn't harmed but it remains the only time I've ever awakened screaming - the sound was like a freight train in the bedroom. Most of the old brick fireplaces in my immediate neighborhood were destroyed (I had to board up the hole in my elderly neighbor's wall as there was nothing left), power was off for days, and the overall damage to the Southern California region was around 20 billion dollars. A 4.7 or 5.0 does very little except at the epicenter, while a 6.7 causes widespread damage and death (72 deaths from Northridge). I hate to even contemplate an 8.25.

 

[gyrafoam]

Yeah, we just got a little jolt here in Roanoke Friday morning. 2.6 or something. The plates must be re-setting themselves.

 

[whirlcool]

And we were driving up to Ft. Worth last weekend and encountered the Texas 3.3 earthquake while driving down the road.

We didn't know it was an earthquake. It felt like the road had a few dips in it and then the dips got progressively worse until the suspension bottomed out. We were going 70mph in light rain. After the second dip I took my foot off the accelerator. We looked at each other and thought, hmm dippy road. I looked at my watch and it was 11:31am. Later when we got to Ft. Worth we were asked if we felt the earthquake. We never thought that's what it was. We just thought that we were on a road with a lot of big dips in it.

 

[jeffg]

Chances are it was just a dippy road. Unless you were sitting directly over the epicenter, a 3.3 earthquake isn't strong enough to cause a car's suspension to bottom out. It's barely strong enough to feel in a car that's sitting still.

 

[jeffg]

> I wasn't harmed but it remains the only time I've ever awakened screaming - the sound was like a freight train in the bedroom. <

I had my initiation to earthquakes when I was 10. We were living four miles from the epicenter of the Sylmar quake when it hit. Fortunately there was a 3.5 foreshock a few minutes before the main shock, this foreshock woke me up so I was wide awake for the main event.

I heard it several seconds before I felt it. It sounded like 100 claps of thunder rolling over the valley, and by the time the shaking started I was safely tucked under a built-in desk unit in our bedroom wall. It was the first time I've ever seen walls bending like that, I almost started laughing while I watched my poor brother dodging stuff that was flying off our overhead bookshelves.

The most impressive though was Loma Prieta in 1989. We were about 12 miles from the epicenter, and the vertical ground motion was simply astonishing. It felt like at least 2 1/2 or 3 feet of vertical motion. It's about the only quake that actually scared me, because you couldn't move to a safe place.

When the Reseda/Northridge quake hit we were living in Palm Springs. It rolled us right out of bed, but I could tell from the ground motion (large, sweeping side-to-side) that the epicenter was quite far away.

Those who're terrified of these things should read about the 1964 great quake in Alaska. Something like 85% of the wood-framed structures survived it, even though the worst shaking lasted somewhere between two and four minutes. I lost almost all of my fear of quakes after I researched this. But still, thank God for building codes.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Did the Earth move for you too baby?

oh my.
Hope everyone is OK.
I experienced two here in NYC.

The first one woke me from a sound sleep and sounded like a truck had driven through a brick wall of the buildng into the living room....baring that, I thought the one in bed with me (spouse) had Mexican food that evening and the beans didn't sit well.

My other thoughts were the natural gas storage tanks in my county (in ELmhurst) met with an accident; then I thought Man, the subwaway or the Long Island Rail Road must have derailed.....

The second one I slept through.

An earthquake here was so preposterous that I listened to the news broadcast in disbelief.

 

[panthera]

I will never forget

the day I came home after a moderate earthquake - 3.4 - in San Francisco.

The ceiling was on my bed and my bed was in the basement.

Our bedroom had been on the second floor.

Normally, you barely notice a 3.2. A 3.3 is definitely there. A 3.4 shouldn't do more than seriously rattle the glasses in the cupboard...but this one just happened to his a house which was ready to let go.

Yikes.

I loved California - even the South, although the folks down there are pretty conservative - but after a while, I began to "feel" one coming. I think I would have left because of that, sooner or later.

Gosh, tho' - San Francisco is one of the few American cities where gays and transgendered could live openly back in the early 1980's. It was a wonderful time.

Earthshaking.

Very glad nobody got hurt.

 

[mysteryclock]

Northridge

I was there for the 94 Northridge earthquake, and it was really something. I was on the 16th floor of the Torrance Marriott and the whole building was really rolling (on rollers, literally) for quite some time after the quake stopped it seemed.

One surreal and completely trivial thing I remember: The "night shift" was at the local TV stations when it hit and went on the air right away to cover what had happened. When "the talent" arrived they were pretty nasty looking -- sweats, greasy skin, frizzy hair, etc. They would stay on-air for some time then take a short break and every time they came back on-air a bit better looking until the end of the day when they were fully made up and dressed well, albeit very tired looking.

Quite a day.

 

[laundromat]

F.B.I.

Hawaii,the "Big Island" has had 5 earthquakes since I arived here in mid December.The largest quake was a 5.1 which hit 45 miles east of Hilo in the Pacific Ocean. The only fear we had was a posible psunamy from the disturbance earth quakes can make coming from beneath the ocean floor.There was a deadly one that hit Hilo back in the 60's killing hundreds of residents.While there a few months ago,I was able to see ruins that were nbever rebuilt and could not begin to comprehend the horrific damages and danger that occured during that devistating tidle wave.They said the wave was at least 100 ft high and covered everything in its path 5 miles inland.

 

[gansky1]

Glad to hear it was very mild.

The Wenchuan Earthquake a year ago in Sichuan Province, China was an 8.0. Felt 1000 miles away, it killed 70,000 people, injured 400,000 and left nearly 5 million homeless. I don't think I'd want to be anywhere near a 8.25!

 

[sudsmaster]

I think the great SF quake of 1906 was an 8.5. What didn't crumble from the quake burnt in the resulting fires - which went out of control because all the clay water pipes had burst as well.

The Federal Mint south of Market was one of the few structures left standing in that area. It had thick stone walls and a water source in its basement. The staff stayed on and fought off fires on the roof etc. The heat from surrounding structures was enough to crack the exterior of the stone walls - causing big flakes to fall off. But the Mint survived.

Around 1965 I recall a 5.x quake hitting SF. We were living on the second floor of a three story apartment building. The first floor was a garage and some store rooms, and the entry way in the middle. The soil underneath was basically sand. I remember that whole structure dipping and swaying. Nothing broke but lots of boxes fell off the top shelf in the overpacked hall closet.