At about 5:30 I heard a heavy “thump” and then shaking built up to a max in a couple of seconds, lasted a few seconds and then and tapered off. The whole thing only lasted maybe 10-15 seconds or so. The epicenter was about 5 miles east of town.
I’ve always wondered what it was like to be in one. Was there anything unusual that happened before it? (like birds flying away, or a car alarm going off, or anything like that)
I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like. Well, I’d think it’d be like being stuck in a paint shaker on a very very low speed, but I’ve got very little to base that on.
No, but we were indoors and wouldn’t have noticed anything of that sort. The thing I notice is that when the shaking starts you always wonder just how bad this one is going to get, or at least I do.
We are fortunate. The basin in which we live is laced with lots of small, short faults so our local area gets small earthquakes (2.0 or less and unfelt) every day. The relieves tension in the local area so big earthquakes tend to be some distance away from us.
Where do you live, out of curiosity? Growing up in SoCal, I’m not sure that a 4.1 would even really register with anyone.
A small one is very much like someone slamming a door in your house very hard, but without any sound.
When you are only 5 miles from the epicenter, it registers.
And there is sound. I heard the heavy thump before there was any perceptible shaking. And the house creaks and cracks from the swaying. In a real strong one, like theTehachapi quake (7.7) of 1952,, I recall a definite, soft, background rumbling. That’s not to say that there is always ground noise, but the houses always creak and dishes rattle.
Okay, you know how it feels when the washing machine shakes the house? That’s what an earthquake feels like.
There’s been several where I didn’t even realize it was a quake till someone else asked me if I felt it. Had one a few weeks ago where I thought one of my neighbors had dropped a box or something.
The only time I’ve ever experienced an earthquake was in 1983. The epicenter was in the central Idaho mountains near the town of Challis, about 150 miles or so from Boise. I was in the 8th grade sitting in my U.S. history class. An obnoxious punk sat behind me. When I felt my desk shaking I thought he was kicking my desk. Everyone else thought the same thing. When we all realized it was an earthquake we evacuated the building fire-drill style. My sister, who was in high school and outside at the time in marching band, didn’t even know there had been an earthquake.
Once when Mom was little, grandpa slapped her for kicking the table. Then grandma said “you know, I really don’t think she’s kicking the ceiling lamp.” Oops. He apologized and ever since, when someone is apparently kicking the table, whomever is bothered by it asks “soandso, are you kicking the table?”
My hometown is a few miles from a practice bombing range, used mostly by the Spanish AF and the USAF. When they use empty shells, you can sometimes hear a short “bum” if the wind is right. When they use live, it’s a lot more than that: you can feel the floor vibrate if you’re standing, then the windows rattle, then you may or may not hear the explosion (depends on the wind). How to predict upcoming bombings with your feet, we call it.
My house is near the underground subway line, so occasional rumblings don’t bother us too much.
I am, however, astounded by the wisdom and keen intelligence of the Ontario government putting the Pickering nuclear reactor… near a semi-active fault line. :smack:
When the Loma Prieta Quake hit in 1989, I was sitting at a stoplight, perhaps 20 miles from the epicenter. At first, I thought there was something horribly wrong with my engine. That theory was soon shelved when the telephone poles started swaying!
Update. The magnitude has been adjusted to 4.0. Epicenter still 5 mi. east, 5mi. deep. Two 1.7-8 aftershocks so far.
Everyone, thank you much for illuminating my life when it comes to living with earthquakes.
It’s funny you mention this because the exact same thing happened to me when I was a kid, except it was my grandfather. He popped me upside the noggin and fussed at me for kicking the table. After I said I wasn’t shaking it he turned around and looked out the screen door and saw the power lines shaking.
Then he said “It’s a GD earthquake!”
Then it was over just like that. At the time I had this weird impression that he’d made it stop on his own.
Oh, and I never got my apology either.
It usually takes me several seconds (sometimes as long as the earthquake itself) to figure out that it even is an earthquake. One time I remember thinking some kind of animal had gotten under my couch and was trying to get out – go figure that one out! :smack: Sometimes I wonder who the hell is walking around on my roof. It really is a strange feeling.
And a very large one is freakin’ LOUD! The Hector Mine quake, a magnitude 7.1, was centered nearly 200 miles from me, yet the rolling ground made it sound like a freight train was passing within inches of my bedroom window. I can’t imagine how it felt and sounded to those who were near the epicenter.
I’ve never been in an earthquake, but I once knew someone who, as a child of ten, experienced the Good Friday quake in Alaska.
She said there was a constant loud rumbling, to accompany the shaking, and when the family ran outside she saw the ground moving in rippling waves, like water.
FWIW, I was 100 miles away from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta quake (also 7.1) and there was no sound. The shaking wasn’t even that intense, although that might have been because my parents’ house is on solid bedrock - my mom and sister were at the grocery store at the time and they said things started flying off the shelves. From my vantage point, the most notable thing about that earthquake was that it was long, about ten seconds. Most earhquakes are just little tiny jolts.
I’ve felt tremors, rather than earthquakes, here in NZ. Down in Rotorua, on the Volcanic Plateau, an earthquake set off tremors that just rolled right underneath a motel we were staying at. Almost as if a train was rumbling and vibrating underground beneath us. Only visible signs afterwards in the city was extra steam coming up out of cracks in the middle of the roads.
I was sat here at home in Auckland once when the same underground vibration sensation rolled through underneath me. The quake that time was somewhere near Wanganui, several hundred kilometres away. If I’d been standing, I wouldn’t have felt it – but sitting down, I felt the rumble.
I’ve only felt one in Sydney, way back in the early 1970s. There was a rumble and what sounded like a huge explosion. Mum and Dad had us all out of bed and standing in the street pretty quickly.
When I lived in Wellington in New Zealand I felt several of them though.