Shake,rattle and roll

[laundromat]

I had just left my apartmaent to go to the store and get some coffee beans when the entire Earth beneath me shook vigorously.It lasted about 7 seconds and was regestered at 4.4. No damages or reprted emergencies.My co-workers and others on campus all came outside imediately as it seamed not to stop.We have been having torential rainfalls and they may be the cause for it.As I was getting over the excitement,my friends that live in a real tree house in Wiepio Valley drove up and asked if we had any rooms available. I said yes and put them up in the Library Suite upstairs.They had to leave valley because the river was swelling from the rain and they didn't want to get stranded there.Their 5 year old son was a bit scared and cried until I gave him one of our cats to play with.When I see them this morning I'm going to invite them to stay until the rain subsides.It doesn't look like that will be happening soon.

 

[jeffg]

Rain doesn't cause quakes, and considering the epicenter was almost 20 miles underground, it certainly didn't cause this one yesterday in Hawaii. At that depth, it could be either magma movement or a small shift of the tectonic plate that sits under Hawaii.

The Pacific plate was shifted a bit during the recent large quakes in Chile and Japan, in fact just a few days ago I told my partner I expected Hawaii would have at least one quake from this recent movement. Wouldn't surprise me if Calif. gets a few more too (we're on the eastern edge of the Pacific plate). Last night SoCal had a 4.0 near the Mexico border.

 

[laundromat]

Since December of '08,we've had 4 small tremors.The first one was a 4.8 and I was in our office sitting down and showing different inverters to a customer. We were having a new whirlpool tub installed upstairs and all of the sudden,a strong jerking took place and it felt and sounded like one of the crew guys had dropped the tub upstairs.I laughed as the customer got up and ran outside. I told her it was o.k. when she mentioned that it may have been an earthquake.Not long after,John returned from the bank and said that all the desks there lost paperwork and a roof had collapsed in on a vacant building.It was just a jolt for a fraction of a second,not like the last one we had yesterday.It sort of reminded me of the sezures I used to have decades ago. Thank God the surgery I had worked!