If you enjoy earthquakes you'll love California!! (Los Angeles, San Diego: vacation home, school)

[cynwldkat]

The last big earthquake was in 1994. Seems a big one comes somewhere around every 20 years..Guess we're counting down for the next one now. But look at it like an "E" ride at Disneyland!! Least we're "rockin".

[Need_affordable_home]

Ill take a quake every 20 years over a hurricane almost every year

[cynwldkat]

Personally I don't care much for either!!!

[pepperpotdog]

I was very close to the epicenter of the 1971 and 1994 earthquakes. I think everyone should experience that at least once in their lifetimes.

[cynwldkat]

It sure does give a person a different perspective about the power of mother nature and how helpless we really are. Just imagine being thrown across the room and not being able to even stand up to get out. Everything flying around you. And the sound is the worst!! It's something I can't even come close to describing. Yes...a definate "E" ride.

[sedonaaz]

i was in the northridge quake. it was a roar like a freight train on top of you. but the apt. building I was in was occillating it seemed like 3 ft up, then 3 ft down from the normal ground plane. it was like the whole building had been thrown in the sea. it thru my wife in the air in bed on top of me. then the walls were shaking horizontally like a blender. we were about 13 miles from the epicenter.

then, when it got light, we went right to the epicenter. passing the collapsed shopping center. the smell of natural gas was so strong we had to keep the car windows rolled up. it never occurred to me the car might have set of a huge gas explosion. none of the traffic signals were working. people were driving thru interections without even looking. we saw a medical/office building which had an entire side collapse. you could see the desks sitting on the 2nd and 3rd floor. on the edge of all the rooms now open to the air.

we got to northridge. my wifes mom lived on top of the epicenter, around the corner from the apt building that collapsed and crushed the poor soul who had just moved in the night before. all of her mom's biggest furniture was thrown around. the kitchen was piled deep in broken glass. standing on the driveway outside the house felt like standing on a vibrating tympani drum head. it was constantly vibrating. this was a couple hours later even.

we thought she was dead buried underneath some big furniture. turned out she was next door helping the neighbor when we got there.

I had probably been through 20 quakes at least, prior to that one. but nothing compared to what that was like. not even remotely.

a LOT of people moved. and never came back.

[Sorcerer68]

I'm sitting in my vacation home in Hawaii. Not long ago we had a big earthquake here. My home was spared damage although I looked up the mountain to see some rock work from a new house coming down the hill like an avalanche. My home on the other side of the island was subject to biblical flooding. We have Tsunamis here too. Every spot has it's natural disasters. I've lived in Florida with it's hurricanes, Tornados in Texas and had those and freezing my ass off in Missouri. Nevada I got a decent earthquake, 114 degree heat and lots of sandstorms. Nowhere is perfect.

[MoMark]

The 94 Northridge quake was similar to the Sylmar quake of 71 because it happened on a thrust fault, so the energy released went up instead of sideways. That's why people and things were thrown upward.
In the Sylmar quake, pools lifted out of their cement molds and went up into the air a few feet like a jello mold, but by the time gravity pulled the water down again, the pools under the water had moved causing hundreds of San Fernando Valley residents with pools to have tsunamis crash through their patio plate glass windows and into the houses.
I went through the Loma Prieta Earthquake of Oct. 17,89. I was at work at the Stonestown Gallery in an after school retail job and the store pitched back and forth violently, then it went the other direction. It only lasted about 15 seconds so they say, but it was a LONG 15 seconds. It didn't throw us into the air though.

[sedonaaz]

right. no place is perfect. but lets face it. you knew someday a hurricane would destory new orleans. and you know someday the fault lines that run through San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, thru Seattle are going to blow big time.

you pick your risks. When I studied an earthquake map of Southern California,
the area of least seismic activity was N. County San Diego. amazing they built a nuclear plant there? no accident I'm sure.

[7.3 Liters]

[quote=cynwldkat;443607]"E" ride at Disneyland!! [quote]

That brought back memories......you mention an "E" ride nowadays and all you get is a blank stare. Thanks...lol