Another California First

Last night at approximately 8:04 pm Pacific Daylight Time, we experienced our first California earthquake. A 5.6 'quake hit the South Bay last night. Fortunately, it originated a good bit to the north-east of us and we did not suffer any damage. It was reported this morning to be the biggest earthquake to hit the area since the legendary 'Quake of 1989.

Christy and I were watching Comedy Central at the time. The first hint of something was a thumping sound that was reminiscent of our cats running full bore around the apartment. Then the thumps magnified into vibration at which point I realized it was an earthquake and our cats started freaking out and running around the apartment in confusion. They took shelter under tables as things moved into full-fledged shaking which swayed the chandelier and rattled dishes. Back in Indiana, there have been two mild earthquakes in my lifetime that reached the initial shaking stage of this one. At its peak, this felt like the entire apartment was on a floating platform, shifting and swaying.

Then it faded away to a mild feeling of vertigo, followed by the world becoming stable again. As our cats spent the next hour searching the apartment for the monster that could cause such disruption to their world, Christy and I were first hit with a sense of awe, followed by "Wow, our first earthquake!" and then with "That wasn't so bad." We were actually surprised to find it was as strong as it was noted to be on the news and the US Geological Survey's website. Also surprising was the news reports saying that it was an unusually long duration 'quake as it lasted about 20 seconds. Again, being from the Mid-west, most of our impressions of earthquakes come from TV and movies where they occur frequently enough that the residents can gauge them accurately and threaten life and property most of the times they occur. Based upon what I'm learning here and now, I would say that tornadoes are a much more frequent and greater threat to life and property in the Mid-west than earthquakes are here in California. Still, both are survivable with a modicum of mental and physical preparation.

Well, that's our first earthquake experience here in California. It seems that, barring something in the range of the '89 earthquake or the "Big One" hits and everything west of the major fault lines falls into the ocean, we're in a fairly safe part of the state. So, Happy Halloween everyone!