Yet another earthquake in Indiana and I didn't feel a thing.
I feel a little cheated, actually. I mean, I don't want to experience an actual, you know, earthquake-type earthquake, but a minor tremblor that didn't actually break anything would be interesting. I mean, you only get to see the planet once, you might as well try and experience the whole show while you're here.
I was in a minor one in Seattle. Deeply freaky, that. Instant panicky ZOMGWTFBBQ.
ReplyDeleteI jumped up and ran out into the street so that the decrepit victorian I lived in wouldn't fall on me.
There was one in Northeast Ohio back in 'eighty-and-six, the day of the memorial service for the Challenger astronauts. I was driving home through Akron and saw the the F-16 "missing man" flyover, and around 2 that afternoon, a minor temblor (floor shook, windows rattled, nothing broken).
ReplyDeleteI think the term "creepy" describes it.
I spent a few years stationed at MCAS El Toro in California. There were quite a few earthquakes while I was there. I was worried about them until I felt the first one and realized that it isn't anything cosmic. Sure, I always felt bad for the people who were hurt, killed, or who lost their homes/had stuff break; but for me, feeling the earth move was rather exciting. Admittedly, I'm weird and have enjoyed myself through all the natural disasters that I experienced. So far, Blizzard, Tornado, Hurricane, and Earthquake. There was also a flood, but I don't count that one because I was a baby and don't remember it.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who lived in California for a couple of days. The first earthquake and she packed and left that very afternoon. She just couldn't handle it I guess.
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I was in LA for the Northridge Quake - that was a hell of a jolt. But I felt almost none of the aftershocks everyone kept noticing and talking about. 3.8 probably wouldn't register with me unless I was setting out the china and crystal.
ReplyDeleteI always wanted the experience too until I felt one at Camp Pendleton and just about jumped off the balcony to get away from the building. Scared me to death.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a tornado, and really want to, but after the earthquake thing I kinda don't now.
Being a native Californian, I've felt a few earthquakes (the closest was ~55 miles from a 6.0 epicenter). I've never experienced any damage, but have stood in more than one doorway during a 'quake.
ReplyDeletewv: retint (redoing a bad dye job)
Ha! I totally felt it. I thought it was a heavy piece of furniture falling over in the other side of the house. I didn't hear any screaming afterwards, so I shrugged and went on about my morning.
ReplyDeleteScared the cat, though.
We had one early one morning in Afghanistan. Supposedly did some serious damage in Pakistan, but around us we thought some @$$ was running a vibration roller to compact the rocks outside our hooch (They'd been doing it all week at normal hours, but this was like 0500...)
ReplyDeleteWe've had a few quakes here in N AL.
ReplyDeleteWhat I remember the most is that there was a jolt that made everything jump once, another made my bed sway for a few seconds, nothing dramatic.
Trust me on this one CTone, you DON'T want to be close to a tornado. I survived two very close misses and when the rain starts going sideways and you can hear your train approaching you know you're about to be in a world of hurt.
Gmac
Being in a very minor one is creepy indeed.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know what was happening, only that the room seem to have taken on life and was slowly rotating around me. Turns out that the computer chair with wheels I was on had simply started drifting just slowly enough to make it look as if the room , but not me, was moving.
It's very disorienting.
Terry
My son, having lived in California for the last 7 or 8 years has felt a few, and describes the ones he has experienced (only minor thank God) as "really freaky".
ReplyDeleteWe actually had several earthquakes in Oklahoma this year (all minor and none felt by yours truly) which caused me to think "WTF, tornadoes AND earthquakes, that's just not right".
Had a few in CA and now AK... last time at work.
ReplyDelete(From the native Texan's office) - "What the he$% was that?"
(From Jenny's office) - "Wheeeeee! Again! Again!"
Me too!! Me too! I was in one in the land famous for quakes.
ReplyDelete19ought79, Crypto school (KY-8) Mare Island, Vallejo CA. 5.7 on the Richter scale... centered near Livermore, about 80 miles away or so from the greater Vallejo metroplex.
The fluorescent light fixtures in the building swayed a little and I felt the workbench kinda shimmy against my legs.
No one else seemed to notice it.
Nuthin' like the movies I tell ya.
Wait for a big truck to drive by.
ReplyDeleteA wee little earthquake feels like that.
Nothing all that special.
I haven't looked at a news website all day...but I thought that's what that was. I was in the kitchen and it sounded like a bunch of stuff had just slid off a shelf. Or like one of the critters currently inhabiting the attic had managed to break through the ceiling in a closet somewhere :) Thankfully it was NOT the latter :)
ReplyDeleteThe little cat was completely freaked out by the experience. Took him two hours to calm down.
The big cat was asleep on the bed and never noticed.
Wow Tam, I would have thought that while you were in TN one of our infrequent 'quake's would have caught your notice. I guess you never spent a lot of time in Middle or West TN. FWIW the entire experence is a bit odd, something akin to air turbulance or even better being in a tree stand or tree house when a strong wind gust shakes everything about.
ReplyDeleteI remember the last one; being on graveyard shift in a quiet workplace, it was definitely noticeable. The general consensus was "Who Farted?"
ReplyDeleteNot exactly spectacular.
When I was a kid, I was at a school dance (6th grade I think) and we heard the alert that a tornado was on the way so we all did the whole tuck and roll routine just like they pound into our brains except one younger kid who was there because his Mom was a shaperone. That stupid little snot stood in front of a pair of plexiglass doors watching. I jumped up, grabbed him and as I was pushing him down behind the brick wall I looked out and got a GREAT view of the roof coming off the other end of the school. That Tornado was HUGE! Ever since, I figure if it's gonna get ya, it's gonna get ya. Might as well enjoy it just in case it ISN'T your day.
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Never felt one.
ReplyDeleteMy mother in law felt the one outside Chicago last summer. She said she thought the snowplow was going down the street. Then she realized it was summer.
A college roomate was in the Northridge quake. It stopped, he rolled over, went back to sleep. Woke up, shaved, showered, got dressed, went to get a paper. Everyone was standing on the sidewalks in their PJs. The asked why he didn't leave the building, there was an earthquake. His reply: "what do I know about earthquakes, I'm from Maine."
I lived in the South Pacific as a kid. I was terrified of earthquakes till my folks told me I had been sleeping through small ones for several months.
ReplyDeleteDidn't worry so much after that.
The one I felt came when I was on a dock about to get onto a ship. I thought the captain had started the engines and they were shaking the ship. Our house, and a lot of other buildings, sustained some damage in that one. Lots of bottled goods hit the floor at stores in town and some of the concrete pillars our house sat on cracked.
I've done blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, and earthquakes. Still need a tsunami and a volcanic eruption to complete the set. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHA! Wildfires! Forgot that one, done that in both California and Florida. Close enough to smell smoke at my house, but not close enough to be in any real danger. While it was going on in CA I took a date to a place on the side of a hill that jutted out a bit. Sitting on a blanket at night we could see almost 180 degree panorama of flames. It wasn't like it was dangerous, the nearest fire was miles away, it just looked impressive. I thought it would be romantic, the girl just thought it was dumb. That girl didn't last long.
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Had one in Roanoke a few years back. I was asleep at the time (worked third shift), and when it woke me up there was a good 10 seconds of me trying to figure out what was going on. I was in that half-asleep, half-awake daze and couldn't decide if it was a real earthquake or if I was dreaming.
ReplyDeleteOnce I figured out what it was, I promptly went back to sleep while it was still going on (they later said it was a 4ish on the ol' Richter scale, if I remember correctly).
It's not the shaking that makes it interesting. It's the waves rolling through the blacktop parking lots!
ReplyDeleteThe San Francisco Bay originally had at least 50% more water area than it does now. The entire bay has been filled in around the edges, starting in the early 1800's. Seems that this "fill" acts just like a liquid when an earthquake of the right type strikes.
So, a large portion of the structures around the bay are sitting on this type of ground. If you are near the bay water level, you're on it.
Makes for a wild ride, sometimes!
Krazmo - Seattle is earthquake country. We used to have them so frequently you couldn't count them. You'd know one was happening because the sash weights in the window frames would clank back and forth, and the chandeliers would swing a bit. Then the top 30 percent of Mount St. Helens vaporized, dropping the planetary temperature a degree and a half in the process, and we've had hardly a tremor since. To whoever it was that wanted to be around a volcano going off - No you don't. Especially if you're down-wind, or in the path of the blast, or one of the stunningly fast-moving mudflows. Killed a bunch of people it did.
ReplyDeleteI was in LA riding to work on my motorbike on the 91 freeway when a big one hit in '89 or '90. At first it felt like I had a flat front tire. I looked down to check, and when I looked back up again a second later, every single vehicle on the freeway was in the process of doing a full lane change in perfect formation as the freeway moved under the vehicles a full ten feet. Very exciting. Everybody stopped for a few seconds, and then we were all on our way again.
BoxStockRacer
I was in an 8.3 in northern Luzon in 1950. The convex mountainside briefly turned concave. "Exciting" is to reality as a cigarette is to a forest fire.
ReplyDeleteI was asleep on the 24th floor of the Sahara Hotel in Vegas when the Northridge quake hit. A swag lamp swaying 45 degrees is an attention-getter. I went back to sleep, figuring that I couldn't beat the 24th floor to the ground, so why bother?
BoxStockRacer,
ReplyDeleteI was on a bus,at Manchester, under the 110 when the Whittier Narrows hit. Who needs coffee when the world's doing Mambo #5?
Tam, try a volcanic eruption in Costa Rica. Food's great, volcano even keeps it warm for you!
Happy New Year!
Ulises from CA
In my room on the sixteenth floor (IIRC) of the Tokyo Hilton, I was sitting at the desk and writing at about 8:00am when the whole room started rattling. Just like the movies, but it took me a second to figure it out. I just sat there, staring, wondering whether I would make it to the lobby (and whether I should get dressed).
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally got to my feet, I went to the window, to observe people strolling down the street as if it were nothing. So; I concluded that it was.
It was one of the weirdest things, ever.
When I lived in Lawton I'd have had a hard time telling a low-strength earthquake from the redlegs at Fort Sill practicing. Especially when it was 155mm or- rarely- 8" guns
ReplyDeleteI hear you. I lived almost my whole life up north of you a bit (KSBN) and I was always disappointed whenever I missed out on a tiny earthquake.
ReplyDeleteNow I live in a valley out west with at least 4 faults running underneath it and I've still not felt a single little tremble.
I'm a bit jealous.
Ah, ya buncha wusses! You shoulda seen who I usta be married to! Ha!
ReplyDeleteMore seriously, I've been in or by blizzards, tornadoes, earthquakes, typhoons etc. and I'll take a blizzard any day as there's lotsa warning and you can always hunker in place without drowning or getting motion sickness. Ever run from the detached garage to the basement while a tornado hoovers the cornfield next to you? Trust me, it's exciting...
Tango Juliet: Me, KG-22. The perimeter alarm tripped one day. It got my attention when the Chief grabbed his .357 and said "Don't move!". I remember being very still...
I was driving I-94 in MI going to visit relatives in the Detroit area in 1987 when one hit. I was in my 1985 Corvette. That generation Vette was know for its less than rigid frame that would, when the road ripples were just right for the speed you were going, resonate amusingly (the whole car would shudder). That's what I thought it was at the time, but it got my attention because as bad as MI roads are, the interstates usually weren't that bad. By chance, I looked at my car clock when it occurred. The next day the Detroit papers had the story about the quake (minor, like a 4 or 5), and the time was close enough that I realized what had happened the day before.
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