Sixth generation Californian here. So, yes. Three of my grandparents were also living here in 06, all lost their homes, one due to collapse while they were in it, one person, not my grandma, dead. The others, married at the time, lost to the SF fire breaks and they lived in GG Park and then moved to NY for two years.
I was in SF when Loma Prieta hit in a Safeway. I knew it was the big one and remained calm watching all the bottles fall from the shelves and break. A thought then occurred to me: what if that wasn’t close by? I walked home, and saw it was in no fire danger and then drove a mile to my Aunt’s house and stayed with her as she was quite shaken.
I experienced both Loma Prieta and Northridge, (and many other smaller ones). I think the best way to describe a big earthquake is that it’s something which inexorably makes you realize how small you are in the grand scheme of things.
Pretty much, though I moved north at the end of 2003. I don’t remember my first one, I don’t remember my last one. The freeway a couple of exits east of my apartment fell down during the Northridge quake. In the mid-'80s I was working in a 12-storey building next to LAX when there was an earthquake. We swayed a bit, and I remember quickly saving my file before the mainframe crashed. Earthquakes would normally wake me up if I was asleep, and then I’d roll over and go back to sleep. Northridge is the only earthquake to date that I got out of bed for.
One was in the mid-80s. I was living in NYC, and working on the tenth floor, night shift. Sometime during the night everyone felt the building shudder, like a large truck went by. Then we remembered that you don’t feel trucks on the tenth floor. Yup, an earthquake.
The other was here, in the early 00s. The woman across the street was angry, because the TV weatherman hadn’t announced that there’d be an earthquake.
Several little ones. I’m notorious for not noticing them. Even I couldn’t fail to notice the 2012 Gippsland earthquake, Wikipedia link, a shallow 5.4 with an epicentre only 20 miles away, but it was by no means a big quake. Div and I bolted for the kids rooms and stood outside then waiting to see if it was going to get worse, but it stopped. Facebook went insane, and my cousins (who live 70 miles away) were among the first asking “Damn! Did anyone else feel that?” so we knew right away it wasn’t like the little 2.somethings we usually get.
No one will believe this, but the first one I really remember was New Year’s Eve, when I was maybe 13 or something. Parents were at a party, and I was staying up late and watching Silver Streak on TV. Quake hit just as the train came bustin’ through the train station.
*I know. *If you told me that, I wouldn’t believe it either. So there we are.
Next couple: I was living in LA and remember the Northridge quake. I had a 6x12 room in a fraternity house and I built a loft into it and used the door frame as structural support. I wedged in a 2x6 that was integral to the whole thing. It worked AWSOME! It woke me up, but I didn’t think it was near as bad as it turned out. I just barely rocked a little.
And the Whittier one. No big deal.
But I still hate going to the Bay Area. Always afraid of being on a bridge when one hits. Perfect storm of phobia: Heights, Quakes and Water. And wrecking my car.
I’ve lived my whole life in the S.F. Bay Area, so I’ve experienced a bunch of them. Loma Prieta was the most memorable - it’s the only one that really scared me. I was at work when it happened, getting ready to go home to watch the World Series on TV. The shaking lasted several seconds, and I remember wondering how long it was going to go on.
When I left the building I noticed smoke rising from a fire in Berkeley. This scared me almost as much as the quake itself did. It made me think of the fire following the 1906 earthquake. Fortunately, the fire department got it out pretty quickly.
I went to my car and turned on the radio. There were no stations on the air. I used the radio’s search feature, and it just kept going around and around without finding anything.
I thought it was best to stay off the freeways, so I drove home on surface streets. Many stop lights were out, and ordinary citizens were out directing traffic.
When I got home I discovered that my house had never lost power. I had set up my VCR to record the game, and as a result I got a few hours of early news reports. I still have this tape somewhere. When I turned on the TV I saw how bad things were - the collapse of the Cypress structure, the fire in the Marina District, the break in the upper deck of the Bay Bridge. The whole thing was really unnerving.
A tiny one, in East TN, maybe forty years ago. All of a sudden it kind of felt like we were on a boat. When the dishes in the corner cupboard began to rattle and almost teetered off the edges of the shelves, we realized what it was.
In ‘68 and again in 72’, though I scarcely remember those. Then in 1980 I was sitting around on a rainy Sunday listening to the radio station play “Aqualung” and when the lyric “Snot is running down his nose” came on everything started rattling. I found this quite mystifying and when the rattling got stronger I wondered if the Russians were bombing us. Meanwhile a boy who had rung our doorbell began pounding on the door. I started wondering if the evangelists were right and this was the battle of Armageddon, so I went to consult my sister and her friend on the matter. They didn’t know what was going on; then my mother stormed out of her room demanding to know why we didn’t answer the door. “Mom, the house is shaking!” we yelled. My mother opened the door and the kid standing there said “All I did was ring the doorbell!”
That quake was 5.2 and located in Maysville KY on a fault previously thought extinct. The next one was in 2008 while I was visiting Kentucky and it originated in Indiana. It occurred early in the morning. It shook enough to wake me up; I thought “Just another dumb ol’ earthquake,” and went back to sleep.
We’ve had a few in New Mexico but those are usually mild or the waves don’t travel as far out here as they do back east so I haven’t noticed them.
I lived in Tucson and theoretically experienced two Earthquakes originating from some distance away. Everyone was talking about them the day after, but I never… uh… actually noticed.
I think after the fact I divined that one of them was the reason the tall building I was in made me feel a little unsteady for half a second the day before (I assumed it was the really heavy wind), but I honestly can’t prove that wasn’t coincidence.
I was on the 4th floor of a building in a state that really doesn’t have earthquake building codes or earthquakes. The floor rippled & wiggled like water does when you are on a raft in a pool.
Admittedly I was in “I’m getting out of this building” mode while everyone else was either in “what do I do?” mode or “you must all keep seated at your desks and keep working” mode.
I was a fairly new employee and had been taken to lunch with the rest of the clerical staff for secretary day when the room started to spin. I think it was 1984. At first I thought it was just me and my nerves, but then I noticed the chandelier moving and realized what was happening.
I’ve been through perhaps 70 earthquakes during the time I lived in Asia. For the most part they were rocking and shaking, nothing more. Only one, in 1999, ever caused any significant damage to our apartment. As a precautionary measure, we evacuated and lived elsewhere for days - there were aftershocks.
Born and raised in Alaska, so I grew up with minor shakers. Then, in 1964, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America struck and changed my perception forever. Even the smallest temblor sends me looking for cover, since you never know how strong it’s going to be. Standing around waiting to see what’s going to happen pretty much defines the word “stupid”.
I don’t remember my first earthquake. We get small ones now and again. I remember the shelves rattling when I was a kid.
In 2010, I felt the two strongest ones I ever felt. One when I was in Manila in the spring and then another when I was at work in Ontario, in the summer.
The first one, I was working nights and it woke me up at about 2 in the afternoon. My bed was shaking back and forth. I was on the 14th floor, so I imagine it felt stronger because of that. I got up, ate some Corn Flakes, and when back to sleep.
The second one, I was having a one on one with one of my employees when I stopped mid sentence and asked him if he felt that. He thought I was sick, I told him, no, it was an earthquake. It wasn’t until reports started coming in a bit later that he believed me.
Yes, twice. (I’ve told this story before.) The first time I was at work and had just called a coworker by the wrong name. I wished the ground would open and swallow me up. The earthquake hit. I thought the delivery truck had struck the building. A manager thought a supply shelf had collapsed and sprinted by to see if we needed to call 911 for someone. Many thought the gas station across the street had blown up, but there were no flames.
The second time was a few years ago. I was sitting in a rocking chair, and I found out how fast it could rock.
No major ones, but growing up in the St Louis area I remember feeling a few smaller quakes from time to time. One I remember when I was a kid and we were outside playing ball, and we all just kind of stopped when the ground started shaking. Another couple of times I remember being inside and the house shook a bit and the windows rattled, but never anything big enough to cause any damage.
This is so true. I was raised in SoCal and lived there until 1979. I have been through several quakes down there and a few up here in the north part of the country as well. There is nothing quite like an earthquake to make you understand the perspective of a bug.
Definitely once, probably twice, maybe three times.
The definite: April 18th, 2008, at about 3:30 AM, Mrs. Homie and I were both jolted awake by our bed shaking. I realized right away it was an earthquake, and I sat there and rode it out, for the lulz, earthquakes being exceptionally rare in central Illinois. I immediately went and turned on CNN so I could watch the news coverage of the quake blow up on TV. I wasn’t disappointed.
The probable: about seven hours later, I was in a meeting at work, when an aftershock took place. I say “probable” because I don’t know if this thread wants to consider this a separate event or just a part of the first event.
The maybe: Kashiwazaki, Japan, c. February 1996. I was laying in bed and I felt the ground beneath me vibrate every-so-gently for about three seconds, as if someone had reached under my mattress and turned on a vibrator and then quickly turned it off. Might have been my imagination, or a truck rolling by, or something, but considering it’s, you know, JAPAN, I figured it was an earthquake.
And wrecking my car. 