OT: Earthquake

Sitting at my computer at 4:45 a.m., can't sleep after being shaken awake by a 6.0 earthquake about an hour ago. I'm 50 miles or so from the epicenter and I can't imagine how strong it must have felt over in Napa county. My hanging light fixture was swinging like crazy.

My son lives near the epicenter so I've been online looking at the news. One of my cpaptalk buddies lives near Napa county too. I'm seeing no injury reports but a lot of damage. Whew.

Hope everyone is OK. Earthquakes are scary things. I was in a 7.2 in Kobe, Japan, so I know! It can take several hours for a clearer picture to emerge about damage, and injuries, but at 6.0 there should not be huge numbers in the US - if building codes were followed.

Quake a 6.0 and centered just south of Napa. Looks so far like plenty of minor damage, some electrical outages, and there are reports of some fires.

Here in Santa Rosa there was a good roll that woke us--it lasted a long while, but nothing fell and my kids slept through it.

I had a hard time falling back to sleep, but mostly because my ff mask was leaking and my teeth hurt. I switched over to a nasal mask and slept well from there.

That was an eye-opener!

Lasted quite a while too.

Not a peep from Santa Cruz county with this one. However we were close to the huge 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake in '89. Never want to experience that feeling again.

In '59 I was 25 miles away from the Yellowstone quake. I was in the bath tub and the quake set up a rather large wave.

Both my daughters went to Sonoma State University over in Rohnert Park. Glad that they're not there now...haven't looked on facebook yet to see what their friends that are still in Rohnert Park are saying. But it sounds like Kaiasgram, you were right near the epicenter. Glad that you're okay, and that your house is still standing and all. While 6.1 isn't the strongest, it still can cause a lot of damage, especially in structures that weren't built to today's earthquake codes (girders to support long walls and large open spaces, cripple walls, bolting to foundation, and so on).

Anyways, last one we had that was anything to think about was the 6.9 in 1989, which was pretty scary. I wasn't at home in Santa Cruz at the time, I was over the hill in Cupertino, but the first I heard was that the epicenter was in Santa Cruz, with my 2-year old daughter and wife, and that the magnitude was 7.1 there. Pretty upsetting. As it was, I was driving home at the time the earthquake happened, and I thought that all the wheels were coming off my car. Until I looked up over the banks of the freeway I was on and saw that the power poles were waving around, then I knew what was happening...

Life in California has its exciting moments, that's for sure.

Not many quakes in Nebraska--we got rattled in 1964 when Alaska had theirs.
Mostly tornados here, we see some every year.

Hope everyone is okay!

Hey Roger,

Thanks! My son went to Sonoma State too and lives in Petaluma now. I talked to him this morning and of course the EQ woke him up and freaked out his kitties but his house is fine (recently built). A lot of injuries were avoided because it happened at 3:20 a.m. when most people are not out and about, driving, etc.

Oh, the Loma Prieta EQ -- I sympathize with what you went through. My sister was driving on the SF bay bridge when it struck. A piece of the upper portion of the bridge fell down onto the lower portion. It looked like an onramp. She was on the lower portion right near where it happened. She and many others were stuck for a long time, and eventually had to drive back off the bridge to SF and find an alternate route home, through the darkened SF streets (power outages all over the city). I was sitting in class with a professor who was not from California and had never experienced an earthquake. He went white as a ghost, and once outside the building he was puffing madly on a cigarette. I had to drive him home because he was unable to return to the classroom.

The force of nature is humbling.

chunkyfrog wrote:Not many quakes in Nebraska--we got rattled in 1964 when Alaska had theirs.
Mostly tornados here, we see some every year.

I remember my first "tornado warning" after we moved to your neighborhood in the early 80's. The sky was a color I had never seen before. Eery as hell and very scary. And the sirens... yikes.

kaiasgram wrote:Hey Roger,

Thanks! My son went to Sonoma State too and lives in Petaluma now. I talked to him this morning and of course the EQ woke him up and freaked out his kitties but his house is fine (recently built). A lot of injuries were avoided because it happened at 3:20 a.m. when most people are not out and about, driving, etc.

Oh, the Loma Prieta EQ -- I sympathize with what you went through. My sister was driving on the SF bay bridge when it struck. A piece of the upper portion of the bridge fell down onto the lower portion. It looked like an onramp. She was on the lower portion right near where it happened. She and many others were stuck for a long time, and eventually had to drive back off the bridge to SF and find an alternate route home, through the darkened SF streets (power outages all over the city). I was sitting in class with a professor who was not from California and had never experienced an earthquake. He went white as a ghost, and once outside the building he was puffing madly on a cigarette. I had to drive him home because he was unable to return to the classroom.

The force of nature is humbling.

Glad that your son wasn't affected much, other than having to put the kitties into group therapy for a while.

Wow, yeah, I saw that Bay Bridge with the pancaked section. You're the first person that I've heard mention that they had a relative on that one, she was lucky not to be any more involved than she was. Must have a guardian angel there somewhere *smile*. That was really bad. And that was only a 6.9, so imagine if you will, an 8.3 (like 1906) or higher, like they've had in Japan, Alaska, and other areas.

My trip over Hwy 17 (south) to get home after the earthquake was harrowing as well, and very slow. There were stepdowns of a foot or so in some places on the highway, had to go around those on the shoulder. There was one fairly long stretch on the northbound side that was just piled full of boulders right up to the top of the concrete guard rail down the middle of the highway from a slide that the earthquake had caused. I was amazed how quickly they got that road open again. And lots of aftershocks during the trip, people were careful to not be on a bridge when they had to be stopped. Took more than 2 hours for the 30 minute drive over 17.

Humbling indeed...puts things in perspective, I guess. The reverse of the peace that you feel looking out over the ocean.

I was in one in 88 in Montreal. It was the noise that shocked me. It sounded like we were inside a washing machine that was off balance. First I thought it was my roommate upstairs doing the laundry but then it got louder and louder and I could see the lines moving outside. I grabbed my 3 day old baby and all I could remember was "stand in a doorway".
The most annoying thing was that we had just finished renovating that 90 year old house and all the cracks were back in less then 3 minutes.

I am glad everyone is safe and sound.

Thanks Lena.

And

RogerSC wrote:Glad that your son wasn't affected much, other than having to put the kitties into group therapy for a while.

Fortunately the kitties' grandma is a therapist *smile* !