Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Quakes and Storms

An earthquake just hit LA and I can tell work is going to be a natural disaster all week so in the meantime I thought I'd honor LA's quake with a picture of Sunday's storm in NYC. Take THAT Jersey City!
During my two years of living in Los Angeles I hoped again and again that I would experience an earthquake. Alas, the most I ever felt was a measly 2.0 rumbler and when it happened I thought it was just a truck passing by my house.

It's not that I wanted a major quake or anything devastating but I did want to feel something. They seem so exciting.

During August and September in LA when the weather gets muggy and very hot people would say things like, "oooh! This feels like earthquake weather." Eric
, The Roommate and I that was always a bizarre thing to hear.

9 comments:

Marc said...

I'm totally with you on this; I spent a semester in the Napa Valley in high school, and soooo wanted to experience an earthquake! Alas, I never even got a 2.0 rumbler - nothing, nada, zip, zilch!

I guess I'll just have to wait for the New Madrid or Wabash Valley faults to kick off and split the country in two!

jeem said...

Eric, I'm sorry you missed it. If it's any consolation we're having nasty storms throughout the Midwest as well.

Marc: I think the Wabash Valley zone's biggest quake happened this April; it woke people up in Omaha and northern Michigan, but that's about it. Let's hope there are no repeat performances scheduled for the New Madrid zone, though; Memphis is a lovely city, and I'd much rather it not get levelled.

Marc said...

There were some people here in Milwaukee that felt the April quake - we were on the outer edge of the zone that actually felt anything. Of course, being 4:30 in the morning, I slept right through it! :(

Greg said...

Back in college in Northern CA, a few of us were in a movie theater -- one of the single houses with ceilings, walls and floor of solid concrete. One of the aftershocks to the quake that collapsed the Oakland Bay Bridge literally twisted the concrete as if it were taffy.

Kind of exciting in an I-almost-peed-my-pants kind of way.

Anonymous said...

I lived in SF on October 17, 1989 5:04 pm and i do not need to ever experience the anxiety, confusion and general stress like that ever again. No thanks. Nothing i look forward to. I prefer to be away from any and all natural disasters.

Anonymous said...

I remember those! One earthquake was the morning of MLK Jr. Monday, and we were really lucky that everyone had the day off when the freeway collapsed.

By the time you start panicking, they're usually over. It's a weird feeling that the ground is rolling. You get in the doorway, and then it stops.

Anonymous said...

I've lived in earthquake country for most of my life. As a kid in Alaska we had small ones nearly every day, and in SF you feel one every so often. I don't relish another one like 89, or Northridge, but I'm not afraid of them either. Tornadoes? Floods? No thanks.

dpaste said...

Same here. I want the experience without any of the devastation.

Mark said...

i felt the quake in L.A. - my first. totally froze. it's a very unsettling feeling. popped my earthquake cherry, tho...