CA Earthquakes...tell me.

[Whip]

I have never felt the earth shake.

 

How are my SO CAL friends doing? 

 

What was/is it like?

 

Do ya get used to it over time or does it scare ya EVERY time?

 

 

[elkroeger]

I wasn't down there for this one.  But it can seem like the ground under you has suddenly turned into a waterbed.  It's weird how something that you think of as a solid can behave like a fluid.

 

Personally, I'm not prone to panicky behavior, but yes there usually is a moment of "oh-crap, do I need to act?" (like exit the building, hide from falling debris, etc.).  Not having been in a "big one", the spookiest thing I've seen was earthquakes in Hawaii.  I always had visions of the whole island sinking into the ocean. 

[longjohn]

33 minutes ago, Whip said:

I have never felt the earth shake.

 

How are my SO CAL friends doing? 

 

What was/is it like?

 

Do ya get used to it over time or does it scare ya EVERY time?

 

 

You just hope to god it won’t be another ‘71er, or ‘94er. Every freeway overpass for miles around is still jutting up from the surrounding freeway by 6”-8”. Yes they did make “ramps” on each side, but still...

[Rinkydink]

My wife is from California and says you tend to get used to it. Here in Arkansas/Missouri we have the New Madrid Fault and the next big one is overdue they say. Had four 7+ quakes in 1811-1812. The Mississippi River even ran backwards they say. My wife is not concerned with quakes but just mention tornadoes and she goes apeshi*. I’m just the opposite. 

[Skywagon]

We had just moved to N. Cal and were planning to close on our new home Oct 18, 1989...Well Loma Prieta hit Oct 17, 1989 at 5:04 PM.  I was at the World Series game  3 which was originally slated for October 17 at 5:35 pm.  That is the shake and bake that really leveled much of the Bay Area...the bay bridge, the marina district, central freeway that went along side the wharf which was torn down and not built back, the Oakland double decker that collapsed, and thousands of  homes and businesses that were damaged or destroyed.

 

Needless to say we decided not to close on the home until another inspection...that's a long story.  The point though is Loma Prieta earthquake was 6.9 and the one this morning was 7.1.  That's big. 

 

We got mostly use to them  People don't realize they happen everyday in Ca.  We us to try to guess the magnitude.  It wasn't a big deal if under 5.0 but from 5.0 and up you start to get damage and nervous or at least we did.

 

Take a look here and see how many and how often mother nature has a fit.  https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#{"autoUpdate"%3A["autoUpdate"]%2C"basemap"%3A"grayscale"%2C"feed"%3A"1day_m25"%2C"listFormat"%3A"default"%2C"mapposition"%3A[[26.31311263768267%2C-130.693359375]%2C[47.368594345213374%2C-86.17675781249998]]%2C"overlays"%3A["plates"]%2C"restrictListToMap"%3A["restrictListToMap"]%2C"search"%3Anull%2C"sort"%3A"newest"%2C"timezone"%3A"utc"%2C"viewModes"%3A["list"%2C"map"]%2C"event"%3Anull}

[Bill_Walker]

I've lived in California for all of my 61 years and I've never been in a really big one, although I've known people who were.  But I've felt a lot of them.  Last night's 7.1 was 180 miles away from me.  My wife was upstairs and said she thought she felt an earthquake.  I was downstairs and hadn't noticed, but when I looked I noticed the blinds on the windows were swaying a little bit.  No big deal for us.

 

Most of the time, they're small, and Californians' reaction is "Hmm, an earthquake."  Years ago, after a quake, the local San Diego paper ran a cartoon showing a scene in an office, with a bunch of people running in all directions screaming "EARTHQUAKE!", and one guy sitting calmly at his desk, working.  The caption was "Can you spot the native Californian in this picture?"

 

The two I really remember feeling were the Coalinga quake of May 2, 1983, and the Northridge quake of January 17, 1994 (and I just had to look up those dates). For the former, I was at work in Sunnyvale (in Silicon Valley, about 125 miles from Coalinga), and all the open office doors started swinging back and forth.  For the latter, I was at home in bed in the northwestern corner of San Diego (about 115 miles from Northridge), and I was awakened by the quake, lay there for a little while thinking "hmm, this is pretty big.  Should I get out of bed and grab our daughter?".  About that time, the quake got stronger, and I jumped up and ran to her room, but didn't waken her.  We had friends who lived in Northridge who had damage to their fireplace and had a lot of stuff fall down, but we had no damage.

 

My mom was working in downtown Oakland during the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, and I was very worried about her.  No cell phones then.  But she hadn't left the office yet, didn't usually go home via the section of freeway that collapsed anyway, and the only issue she had was that her car was low on gas and none of the gas stations were pumping because the power was out.  But she made it home to Mill Valley.

[Bill_Walker]

Here's the thing about earthquakes:  they come with no warning, there's only a little bit of prep you can do and you only do it once, and they either hit you or they don't.  So why worry about them?  I'd sure rather have the quakes we have (note that it's been 20 years since SoCal had a quake this big) than have to deal with hurricanes or tornados every year.

[Bill_Walker]

Wikipedia has a list of California's major quakes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_California. Note that the number of deaths is quite low, especially since 1973, with Loma Prieta and Northridge being the outliers.  Our building codes and required retrofits do a pretty good job of keeping stuff from falling down.

[Rinkydink]

45 minutes ago, Bill_Walker said:

  I'd sure rather have the quakes we have (note that it's been 20 years since SoCal had a quake this big) than have to deal with hurricanes or tornados every year.

 

Luckily hurricanes have plenty of advance warning. They have come leaps and bounds in predicting where tornadoes are likely but a tornado can pop up very quickly anywhere in the severe weather advisory area. Earlier this year we had a  cluster of very quick forming tornadoes and we had no severe weather advisory issued anywhere in the state. The weathermen were caught flat footed on that one. Unnerving to say the least. 

[Bill_Walker]

2 minutes ago, Rinkydink said:

Earlier this year we had a  cluster of very quick forming tornadoes and we had no severe weather advisory issued anywhere in the state. The weathermen were caught flat footed on that one. Unnerving to say the least. 

Climate change is making weather prediction less accurate, because the increased energy and moisture content and changes in the jet stream mean the weather no longer behaves the way it has in the past.  All the prediction models are, of course, built on past behavior.

[mrduck]

Well I for one found the sensation of this absolutely exciting......standing in your home and the whole place is rocking end to end is quite the experience! We are sorta close to the center of this and that was one hell of a ride!

Those of you that’s been to Death Valley you may have passed thru Trona and they got hit hard,. The main water line 

into town was cut off, and the road closed for a while...... but if one can live in Trona, you must be a little tough.

Not much mention of China Lake Navel Wepons Center. The navy has a base out here that’s larger than the state of Rhode Island for aircraft testing among other things......

Two in as many days, been a wild 4th of July weekend!

 

 

Don J

[Twisties]

We're due, more or less, for a CSV event, which will include an earthquake and a tsunami.  On the low end an 8.0 with a fairly tame tsunami, maybe 30' or so.  On the high end, over 9 with a monster tsunami.  Tsunami height depends on local topography, but there are some places, such as right at the CA-OR border where we could see 180' according the geologists.  Hard as it is to believe,  right here on the coast the tusnami will likely cause more death and damage than the 9+.   On the other hand, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and all the rest of the I-5 corridor will get a major blow and damage is expected as far inland as Baker City, near the Idaho border.

 

We here in podunk are told 3 to 7 weeks before we see a bottle of water in a 9+ event.  They estimate our county, when land slides and soil liquifaction are added to the bridge collapses, will have something like 40 separate, isolated communities with no way out.  At the beach land should subside about 6' and move about 150' west.  At our house, maybe more like 12' and 100'.    All of the Ports and roads will be destroyed.  Pretty much everything in the inundation zone will be swept away.   

 

Eventually they will use the Cape Blanco Airport and set up helicopter distributions, but not until the I-5 Corridor is situated.  Recently, they have begun talking about sending ships....  I hope.

 

An 8.0 is much more manageable since damage will be limited to the southern end of the fault.  

But so far, no, I have never felt a strong one.

 

[Bill_Walker]

59 minutes ago, mrduck said:

Not much mention of China Lake Navel Wepons Center.

All I've seen is a report that the station is "not mission capable at this time."  That could mean anything from cracked runways to utter devastation.

[mrduck]

1 hour ago, Bill_Walker said:

All I've seen is a report that the station is "not mission capable at this time."  That could mean anything from cracked runways to utter devastation.

I’ve done some work out there in years past, they keep a  very tight lid on the place. Probably won’t hear a thing other than non committal  statements like that........

 

 

Don J

[longjohn]

 

On 7/6/2019 at 5:31 PM, mrduck said:

I’ve done some work out there in years past, they keep a  very tight lid on the place. Probably won’t hear a thing other than non committal  statements like that........

 

 

Don J

Where is Dwight when you need him?

[Bill_Walker]

On 7/6/2019 at 5:31 PM, mrduck said:

I’ve done some work out there in years past, they keep a  very tight lid on the place. Probably won’t hear a thing other than non committal  statements like that........

 

 

Don J

 

I saw a post on FB with a photo of a road on the China Lake base that had about a five-foot alignment offset from one side of a crack to the other!  Both of the big quakes had their epicenters on the base.

 

Per the LA Times, the base has been evacuated: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-earthquake-naval-air-weapons-station-china-lake-20190708-story.html