# Earthquake San Jose **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 4, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161 "2023-04-04T22:24:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/21 "2023-04-05T03:12:44Z")
Oh crap. Thanks for nothing. But I don’t think I’ll go back to worrying. ETA — I should add a smiley. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/22 "2023-04-05T03:13:51Z")
Just seeing this now, sorry. It was roughly 20 minutes before I made that post. IIRC ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/23 "2023-04-05T03:14:51Z")
Thanks. It’d be cool to go and see where the epicenter was. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/24 "2023-04-05T03:35:01Z")
I was trying to make a joke. You said you were rocking. I asked what o’clock because [Rock Around The Clock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdufzXvjqw). On a serious note, once back in the mid 1980s, during the NCO meeting for my USAR unit in Mountain View, CA, a smallish earthquake occurred. The one NCO who had recently moved to California freaked out, but he was also the only one who did the correct thing: he got under the table until the quake had subsided. Familiarity does not always breed contempt; sometimes, it’s just complacence. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/25 "2023-04-05T03:52:10Z")
Cool. Loved me some Happy Days on TV when I was a teenager in the 1970s. And I got many military haircuts at the barber shop at Moffett. Military haircuts on base are cheap! ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/26 "2023-04-05T05:45:57Z")
So you remember Saint James Infirmary? An arsonist burned it down in 1998. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/27 "2023-04-05T06:52:29Z")
I remember St. James Infirmary! That place had some … interesting decor. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/28 "2023-04-05T08:42:21Z")
Buddy of mine got ejected from the place for climbing that statue. I don’t know how he did it, but he made it to the shoulders. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/29 "2023-04-05T09:21:53Z")
I remember that place. It burned down in the late 1990s IIRC. I used to work in downtown Mountain View, not far from it. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/30 "2023-04-05T20:19:48Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I remember St. James Infirmary! That place had some … interesting decor I remember the decor and the peanut shells on the floor. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/31 "2023-04-05T20:27:17Z")
We’ve had earthquakes bigger than that in Cleveland. I’m a little surprised that a Californian would even notice anything below a 5. Though you probably recognize it a lot easier than Clevelanders would-- We get a lot of “Wait, did you feel that? Was that an earthquake?”. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/32 "2023-04-05T20:31:12Z")
Though not huge, this one was an abrupt jolty one. And a 16 story skyscraper most certainly amplifies the movement, and prolongs it afterwards. My boss was working from her (one story) home much closer to the epicenter, and she didn’t feel it. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/33 "2023-04-05T20:37:18Z")
I was told jolty ones meant you were closer to the epicenter, and if you were farther away, it would be more of a rolling feeling. No? I remember the Landers EQ woke me up, and I was over 150 miles away. I felt like I was in a gently rocking boat. It was a 7.3. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2023, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/34 "2023-04-06T02:10:44Z")
what’s interesting is that the Bay Bridge was built in 1936, the Golden Gate one year later, but it was Bay Bridge that collapsed in 1989, but GG had no damage ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/35 "2023-04-08T11:05:17Z")
The Bay Bridge didn’t collapse. One section of the upper-span “hinged” downward and fell onto the lower deck causing one death and making the entire bridge unusable. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/36 "2023-04-08T12:36:44Z")
You’re absolutely correct. But that was the message broadcast nationwide, and worldwide, by the news: **collapsed**. Here is a picture from wiki of the failed section: [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Bay_Bridge_collapse_2.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Bay_Bridge_collapse_2.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/37 "2023-04-08T12:51:23Z")
You said the bridge was unusable, and it was. A little story of those days… The eastern span was unusable. But the western span, the suspension bridge between San Francisco and Treasure Island was usable. (The eastern spam, going to Oakland , was a cantilever Bridge) I was stationed on TI in the early 1990s and I once stopped in the middle of the bridge, which of course was empty. I parked my motorcycle and stepped away for a few yards, and snapped a picture of my parked Yamaha bike in the middle of the empty bridge. The empty bridge felt a little eery, because during normal times the bridge always had traffic. Always, at any hour of the day or night. Only those who lived/worked on TI (or YBI, Yerba Buena Island), were permitted to use that part of the bridge. But nobody checked. There weren’t any checkpoints. It was a great picture, if I do say so myself! But it got lost over the years and moves. It might be in a box somewhere and if I find it I’ll be sure to share. This was in the days before selfies and cell phone cameras. I snapped the pic with my SLR camera, with film and negatives. The old fashioned way. Just the bike, parked on the empty bridge, with San Francisco’s skyline in the background. Wish I still had that photo… ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/38 "2023-04-08T16:29:56Z")
Incentive to find that photo: > [@Monthly Photo Competition #5 - April 2023 - “Transportation”](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monthly-photo-competition-5-april-2023-transportation/982019/1): > > This is the monthly thread for April 2023. The topic this month is “Transportation”, chosen by @Turek Please note: The general rules for the competition are [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642). One entry per person per month. To make the photos easier to review (and to make the voting poll easier to compile) please only post once to this thread, with your entry. Your post can include a caption with whatever info you want to give. Please keep all discussion in the [rolling discussion thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642). Once the submission d… ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2023, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161/39 "2023-04-09T03:51:10Z")
I’d better find it! 😂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earthquake-san-jose/982161.md?page=1)