If so, do you remember your first one? What was it like? What did you do and think and how did you feel?
If you’ve been through more than one, what’s the worst one you remember?
I had my first (and so far, only) earthquake in 2010. One hit in the Mexican desert and it was felt all the way up in here Phoenix.
Not many earthquakes here in Phoenix, really. I felt strangely excited and overjoyed afterwards, though, and wondered if that was wrong of me. It was like “Golly, my first earthquake! : D I’m special now.”
I have only been close to one big one. This would have been in the Bay Area somewhere around 1983-1985. My grandparents lived in Berkeley and I remember the first sensation I had was something like vertigo or dizziness. For some reason, the ground was just not holding still! Then I figured it out and followed the conventional wisdom to go stand in a door frame away from glass. There was never any sense of fear, though it was certainly strange and unusual.
I remember the Northridge earthquake as well. This one was bigger in an absolute sense, but I lived about 200 miles away from it. At that distance, it was a pretty minor event for me. Again, the same feeling of dizziness/vertigo and I looked up to see a glass of water near me. The water was sloshing back and forth.
I don’t remember my first - east tn has minor ones occasionally. But I do remember the one you mention. I was living in Tucson at the time and it felt like going over a big hump in the road.
I’ve only lived through one earthquake. It was the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, which was a 5.6, though I was living in the Sydney metro area at the time.
It was still quite strong and offputting. The wall cabinet looked like it was about to topple over. It wasn’t terrifying where we were so much as a “unique experience”.
I’ve probably felt three or four minor ones here in Panama. It’s just been a minor swaying back and forth for a few seconds with no damage. My main feeling with the first one was trying to figure out if I had actually felt an earthquake or not. I think I might have felt one or two similar ones when I lived in New Zealand, but am not sure about that.
Yes, a number of minor ones when I lived in Wellington, New Zealand. Most were short and sharp but there was one which occurred while I was at work and it went long enough for me to get under my desk.
Also a memorable one back in the early 1970s in Sydney. It was early morning and my father had us all outside in the garden quick smart. I remember being cold standing there in my pyjamas.
I grew up in the SF Bay area so earthquakes were always “there”. In 1989, we were living in Aptos, three miles from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta quake.
Born and raised in California. Too many earthquakes to count. I have no recollection of the first one. My mom was five months pregnant with me when the 1971 San Fernando quake struck… if that counts.
The most powerful one was the 1989 Loma Prieta quake.
I was in England in Oct 2002 for that one - I was just about to fall asleep before midnight and I thought it was a train and just went right on falling asleep, and I was at work in upstate SC for our little bitty one on Valentines Day. I thought I was imagining things until I checked the news - just the teensiest quease and that was it.
Growing up in the hills here in PR I only noticed them sporadically, if I was sitting still somewhere I could hear rattling stuff. Then again I was a kind of spaced out boy, I’m told. But after moving to the coastal plain and drained wetlands of San Juan (amplifying soil geology) I’ve felt quite a few. In the last 4 years a couple of 5.4s (one damn close inland, Intensity VI) and one (offshore) 6.4 Magnitude and Intensity V. Small potatoes in the bigger scheme of things but I was most definitely NOT amused. Just felt one (4.6/IV) last week.
Life long California resident here. Too many to count.
Three stand out
I was a teenager back in the 60s. We lived on the side of a hill. One afternoon. I was on the phone to my friend who lived about 5 miles away. While we talked I was staring out the window in his direction. Suddenly he says whoa an earthquake! I start to say your crazy but I swear I could see the earthquake approach me then sake the house. Just like watching an approaching motorboat wake on a lake.
landers quake 1992. Not bad at our house just a gentle roll but a big asses quake out in the desert.
Anyway I’m at the grocery store that evening. I am approached by a group of three women and a gaggle of girls say 8-18 asking for directions. In a heavy southern accent I might add
I give the requested directions and ask what the group is. Dance troupe from Louisiana was the answer.
I asked where they spent last night. Palm Springs was the answer (nearest town of any size to the epicenter)
Did you get the wake up call we left (quake was @5am)
Yes was the answer that is why we are shopping here going to KFC and leaving. Why I ask, it’s over.
Discussion about earthquakes vs Hurricanes goes on for a couple of minutes until one of the adults asks me if it is true that when the big one hits California will fall into the ocean?
Folks you shouldn’t give me an opening like that here is my response:
“No that’s not true, that is just what we tell people. Now in not supposed to tell you guys this, but since you have been through a quake I guess it’s OK if you promise not to tell anyone.”
Whole bunch of heads nod up and down
“Everyone thinks that when the big one hits everything west of the San Andres will fall into the Pacific. This is not true. The truth is when the big one hits everything EAST of the San Andres fault will fall into the Atlantic ocean.”
(15 seconds of dead silence then from one of the young girls)
“But that’s the entire rest of the country”
“Yes it is, now you know why you can’t tell anyone. Have a nice trip home”
Northridge. The shaking was vertical at my house and I read that a ground sensor not far from my house recorded over 1G vertical acceleration.
That was a wild ride.
We don’t get many earthquakes in New York but they do happen from time to time. The first I remember happened when I was about five and woke me up in the middle of the night. The second one was the 2011 Virginia quake linked above, which shook up my window blinds fairly well.
Allegedly, there was an earthquake in California when I was out there visiting colleges in 1999. Apparently I slept right through it.
Several, when I first moved to Northern California, but only one of them caused any (fairly minor) damage nearby. Also several more in Guatemala and Chile, again none that caused any damage.
I was a little kid, normally I slept like the dead, but one hot night as I slept on the living room couch I remember waking up to the locked front screen rattling as if someone were trying to get in. My grandmother rushed into the room and told me it was OK we were just having an earthquake. But then to be safe she told me to go sit under the door frame that led to the kitchen. Next day we found out that that farther east if us in California there had been serious damage. There were small quakes we barely even noticed. The last one we felt was here in BC Canada, one evening my husband said we were having an earth quake, I didn’t believe him, until I saw the blinds in the kitchen swaying.
Both natural (the Iberian Peninsula is a micro-tectonic plate, in very rough terms Africa is trying to get under us and pushes us against Europe) and artificial (when the local Air Force practice grounds get used with live bombs and not just dead weight).
I don’t remember my first one, but I’ve explained to people that “building the reservoir did not cause this area to have earthquakes, the quakes have always been here”, explained about plate tectonics, asked how many times do they hear on TV about Mercalli IV quakes in other parts of Spain and it’s treated as more of a curiosity than anything to worry about… it’s pretty neat, seeing them go from “this is so because my political guru said it was so” to following the lines on the tectonic map and asking “so that is why they talk about ‘San Andreas’ so much in the movies? It’s got to do with earthquakes!” Yep, it’s not the patron saint of Los Angeles.
