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Post by orionsrose on Apr 8, 2024 23:52:24 GMT
Have you ever experienced an earthquake? How big? Were you in an area likely or unlikely to get them?
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Post by orionsrose on Apr 9, 2024 0:43:41 GMT
These recent New Jersey/New York area earthquakes got me thinking and wondering how many here had been in one before! I've experienced several here in BC which is fairly likely to get them due to the fault lines. The biggest one I've experienced was in Sept. 2011. It was around a 6.4. I was sitting in a big comfy chair and it was like there was an explosion and the chair moved backwards almost a foot! Another interesting one was in the late '90s and I was laying down on our couch when it suddenly felt like I was on a surfboard! That one was like a wave and went on for longer than I was comfortable with!  Most of them though, we just barely notice. We usually think it's just a big truck, or since we live in a forest area, a tree falling. The one we had just before Christmas, we just thought was rumbling thunder at first. But then it went on way too long. It was about a 4.9. |
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Jo
Skunk
Forest Ranger
Posts: 2,024 
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Post by Jo on Apr 9, 2024 1:38:26 GMT
Twice for me but I have no idea what strength they were. The first time was in Okinawa and it made our whole apartment building quiver and went on for about ninety seconds. Scared me to death because my first assumption was that there was something structurally wrong with the building and it was coming down. It didn't and my neighbor explained it. We had tremors several times after that. Also got to experience a typhoon. Good times!
The second earthquake was here in Michigan and it made the windows in my office rattle. This wasn't scary - just perplexing. Other people came out of their offices and we all asked "What was that?". Earthquake!
It's rare to have perceptible earthquake activity in my part of Michigan, more often in Ohio, but I had no idea that it was so frequent in your neck of the woods, orionsrose.
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sandy
Mallard Duck
Posts: 148
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Post by sandy on Apr 9, 2024 4:03:43 GMT
We have them here in Oregon, too. They scare me. The experts say Oregon is due for a big one.
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joybelle
Rabbit
Park Ranger
Posts: 1,688
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Post by joybelle on Apr 9, 2024 4:58:25 GMT
We have only had little ones in the last couple of decades...2's and 3's But 40 or so yrs ago we had a BIG ONE!. It was an 6 or something...I was sitting in a lounge chair on wheels...and it stated moving across the floor. And my (very trendy back then)..monstera plants fronds were hitting the ground and coming back up. It was really scary! And about two hrs after that we had a dust storm that plunged us into darkness (like an eclipse) due to all the soil getting disrupted in the farming communities. Our house however for all the shaking..was fine. There was stuff everywhere...but the house just settled down again?? Figure that. Weather board house on wooden stumps..they built em solid back then eh! Honestly we thought it was the end of the world LOL LOL...but here we all still are.  |
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Post by lurkercat on Apr 9, 2024 5:40:00 GMT
For a while I had a job where I had to make monthly business trips to California & I was really looking forward to the chance to experience an earthquake (and particularly in a place where I owned no property so wouldnt have to deal with any aftermath!). At one business meeting there, felt a truck rumble by outside....only to remember we were on a really high floor so of course it could not be a truck. Cali natives at the meeting told me it was an earthquake. How underwhelming!! Maryland has had 2 earthquakes this year...and I only found out about them by reading comments on NextDoor. Never felt a thing. Several years ago we had one that I actually did feel...but only 'cause I'd had a sore back when sleeping so had gotten up and laid on the floor and so (barely) felt a minor shaking. So my earthquake experience has been decidedly disappointing.
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kasie
Squirrel
[TI1]
Posts: 1,342
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Post by kasie on Apr 9, 2024 10:19:41 GMT
Only once in the 60's if I remember correctly, we were visiting friends in a place called Meckering in Western Australia..a 6.5 struck, no one was killed but a lot of damage, small town, picked the wrong day to visit....  |
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Post by lisabella on Apr 9, 2024 19:07:38 GMT
Yes. I was 11 and home alone getting ready to watch the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened. I didn't feel it because the house I was in was built against rock but it was a 6.9. I only knew it was a earthquake because I could hear the news anchor say "we're having a earthquake". Couldn't see them because the TV was snow at the time. But the picture came back and I watched it all live on TV. To this day I still have trouble crossing the Bay Bridge even though only section of it fell. Complete highways collapsed but that bridge is what sticks in my head.
In September of 2000, I was home for Labor Day weekend and we had a 5.2 earthquake, the epicenter was just a few miles away. This quake felt different from others due to the fault line. I remember my mom yelling at me to get in the doorway but I was in a futon just inches off the floor and I couldn't get out of bed! I kept trying but I physically could not get my body out of bed. It was the weirdest feeling.
Nothing was damaged in our house but plenty of older buildings around town were. As someone who lived in California for 32 years, I've experienced plenty of earthquakes. I will take an earthquake over any other natural disaster. Hands down. Even if I still carry around trauma from one!
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smitty189
Squirrel
[TI18] "No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness" Aristotle
Posts: 1,000
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Post by smitty189 on Apr 14, 2024 14:01:26 GMT
I lived in San Francisco and the Bay area (Concord) for 20 years. Felt lots and lots of quakes big and small. I worked on the 10th floor of an office building in downtown SF so they could be scary. Had one when I was pregnant with 2nd baby and I guess I got so pale that one poor co-worker thought I might go into labor (But was just worried about baby No 1 at baby sitters quit my job when 2 was born ) In 1989 I was at home with my kiddos 7 & 5 when the 6.9 Loma Prieta quake hit. Grabbed the kids and went to stand in a doorway saw our car in the driveway bouncing about a foot off the ground. DH was in the last plane that was able to take off from SF airport all he knew was there had been an earthquake - didn't know how bad until he got to Seattle and heard news. We could phone out but could not get incoming calls and since I didn't know where he was staying had to call my parents in PA and have them call his parents also in PA knowing he would call them. It took about 2 years before I would get back on that bloody bridge (BAY Bridge) again also because some of the highway collapsed. We left Cali for NC about 10 years later but just traded earthquakes for hurricanes and tornados
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Jo
Skunk
Forest Ranger
Posts: 2,024
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Post by Jo on Apr 14, 2024 22:07:56 GMT
orionsrose said in Comments: Okinawa makes perfect sense, but wow...Michigan!
From everything I can find Michigan has very little direct earthquake activity. Most of anything that we might feel in the Detroit area is centered in Ohio under/close to Lake Erie. This is what we've had this year, most in Ohio and one in the Marquette area in the upper peninsula:
There is a fault line that runs across the upper peninsula, through Wisconsin and off into the Dakotas. Some earthquakes have been triggered by salt and copper mining but not in quite a few years.The strongest earthquake in Michigan, 4.6, was in May, 1947 and centered in Coldwater which is close to the Ohio line.
The reason for this is apparently the great lakes area had lots of whooper earthquakes a few hundred million years ago and things shifted and settled into our now granite foundation. I have read that there are no actual plates left to rub together. Not a geologist so I'm not sure if that's true or not.
So Michigan's situation is very different from the west coast and not something that people here worry about. Geologists track every little quiver and it's all part of emergency preparedness. Just in case!
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sisinka
Hummingbird
[TI20]
Posts: 223 
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Post by sisinka on Apr 19, 2024 9:50:35 GMT
Never.
I live in an area where earthquakes don't occur. And I don't miss it at all.
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