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We had just arrived at the Chicot lakehouse, today, to clean up and take down the Christmas tree, etc.....I heard a big rumble, and thought an 18 wheeler was passing by on the hiway.....then, the whole day’um house shook for about 5 seconds.....wifey squalled like a banshee, then everything returned to normal.
Turned on the tv, and they reported a 3.9 earthquake about 25 miles southeast of us.....no aftershocks, as yet.....weird feeling, which I don’t like, at all !!!
We had one here last year. I'm not a fan either. Makes a guy feel pretty insignificant and helpless.
They do make you realize that you have no control overwhen/why they happen. We’re still shaking to beat the band here in Oklahoma. We keep hearing from the folks responsible, “we have our top people working on the problem.”
So we’re good I guess!
BKB
Been through two, not big ones, but enough to get your attention. Wifes two brothers live in CA, and treat them like we do a thunder storm, no big deal.
Did you know that we in Oklahoma now have more quakes annually than California?
Boo yah!
BKB
Lived on the West Coast 6 years and never had one
Lived in L.A. for 13 years and like Bubba stated, 'bout like a small thunderstorm ... no big deal. Actually, those "smaller" quakes are a good thing. They're simply minor slippage which relieves pressure on the tectonic plates. When you go for a long period without any slippage, that's when ya' gots ta' worry. The pressure builds and all of a sudden the plates slip and move a greater distance, which causes major damage.
When I first moved to L.A, it was quite a while before I ever felt one. Many times there were small trembles and I never knew it until I heard it on the news. The first two decent sized trembles, I missed out on. Once, I was driving to work and as I made a turn onto a main street, there were a group of people sitting on a bus bench. Just as I approached them, they all jumped up and were looking all around (at what, I had no clue). At about the same time, the DJ on the radio station I was listening to exclaimed, "Whoa! That was a pretty good sized shaker!" He then went on to say we'd just had a decent sized quake ... which I'm sure is why the people jumped up off the bus bench. I felt nothing while driving. The next one, I was in an office building in downtown L.A and in the elevator going down about 10 floors. When we got to the lobby, the elevator doors opened and everyone was standing around wide-eyed and said we'd just had a pretty nice sized earthquake. Not one of us on the elevator felt anything. To be honest, I was a little disappointed as I'd never felt an earthquake in my life. :(
Eventually, I experienced some fairly big ones and they were actually fascinating to me. Once, I was lying on my couch watching TV. All of a sudden, the end of the couch where my feet were, lifted up, then went back down as the other end, where my head was, also lifted and laid back down. It felt exactly like lying on a raft in the ocean and having a wave roll under you. The next one, I was at work and was about to exit the building when I felt the floor rise up underneath me! I was at the door which had a large glass window and I was looking out over a large (mostly empty) asphalt parking lot. It looked exactly (as described above) like a large "wave" rolling through the lot. It was like the asphalt was liquid. I'm tellin' you, it was a rather large "wave" and you could actually see the lot rise up and set back down as it rolled through, at the same time lifting the cars and setting them back down. It was an incredible experience and I'd never seen anything like it ... but it looked just as it felt when the one hit while I was on the couch. One thing that amazed me was, I walked out into the parking lot and expected the surface to be pretty much broken up and destroyed. You couldn't tell that anything had happened. I can't believe how flexible the asphalt was ... virtually like liquid.
The next "larger" one, I was again at work and up in the dispatch tower in the shop of the dealership. The tower protrudes out from an upstairs storage area where the dispatcher can look out over the whole shop as the mechanics worked below. Man-o-man! That one wasn't a "rolling" quake, it was a SHAKER! What made it kinda spooky was the power went out and we (the dispatcher and I) couldn't see a thing. There were no windows upstairs and it was pitch black. To make matters worse, that floor was used to store parts for the parts department, mostly bigger items like body panels, fenders, hoods, bumpers, etc. (we had a body shop) You can imagine the noise those things made banging against each other along with items hitting the floor. We eventually made our way to the stairs and out into the shop. Many of the cars in the shop were on hydraulic lifts and the cars were swaying back and forth. Mechanics were scattering in case one of them should fall off the lift. That rumbler lasted a fairly long time comparatively. The phones were out (no power), but many of those Cadillac owners had car phones (no portable cell phones back then) and everyone was searching for cars that had phones in them (we'd scan across the lot and look for cell antennas). We were all calling home to make sure family was ok, etc. We suffered no real damage, but several buildings in town were damaged ... nothing too major.
I figured this thump story was going to end with, “and so there we were. Trapped in rubble for 3 days. Good thing Elvis had a deck of cards in his pocket. We played poker to pass the time and the 3 of us stayed alive on a small pack of nabs that Marilyn Monroe had in her purse.
Naaa, Elvis called to make sure I was ok, but he was back in Memphis with Priscilla and the Colonel. ;)
Ummm, I was 10 years old when Marilyn died dufus.
I’ve only been in one I felt. I was sitting in an open air beach front bar when it hit. Just like BM, I thought a semi was idling in the street beside the bar. By the time I looked around, saw no truck and realized what was happening, it was over. I’m glad it hit about 200 miles inland and not off shore. In just checked and it was a 5.8 which is pretty significant for this part of the country.
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I was up in a concrete parking garage when that one hit. You know how when you miscount coming down the steps and think the floor is there but you still have another step? That's what I did. When I realized what was going on all I could do is think about all the concrete above and below me. I was fully prepared to jum out the side to avoid being crushed but it stopped before I could get to the edge.
The ground is NOT sposed to move where we live!
I think I’d take my chances with the Tsunami over crushed by a concrete parking garage.
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The first time I was in one that I seriously felt scared, we were in Roatan. Like CD said, being on an island during an earthquake conjures up a whole shitpot full of paranoia. It shook so bad the power went out, which isn’t all that rare in Roatan, and stuff was falling off of shelves throughout the house we were in. My wife slept through the whole thing. I guess my normal snoring has her conditioned or something.
BKB
I was in Phuket Thailand (it's an island and it's pronounced Poo-Ket' you pervs) in 2004 and came home for Christmas. That big assed tsunami practically wiped the place off the map one day after Christmas. I think there were close to 1,800 people killed. injured or missing in Thailand after that one.