Can you feel the earthquakes where you live?

[Grassyknoll]

Originally Posted by terracore

During the eruption when we were having thousands of earthquakes a day, the Pahoa Longs had straps on the shelves in the wine/liquor section to keep stuff from falling off. It was an eerie thing to live through. When driving on 130 from Keaau towards Pahoa it looked like driving into Armageddon. All the separate fissures had their own black or white smoke billowing from them and the smoke hung oppressively low in the heavens like they were hitting a ceiling. At night it was even crazier with the lava glow outshining the moon and stars and also illuminating the smoke.

The eruption made the rain acidic so some of our vegetation started dying. All the while, every day, the ground was shaking and there were explosions every few minutes coming from the fissures that would rattle our windows and spook the dogs. I can't think of any adjectives that do justice in describing the experiences. The National Guard checkpoints and the blackhawk helicopters in the sky running survey and rescue missions added another element to the chaos. Every night we would go out into our yard and look at the glow from the lava. After awhile we quit taking pictures of it, and after awhile longer sometimes we never even went out to look at it. "This is just life now". And then just as mysteriously as it started, it ended.

In the very beginning, when the lava drained out of the summit and the earthquakes began I said to the wife, "I think we are about to live through some s h ! t". And we did.

I think the worst part of it was when Pele's Hair started falling. Not because having glass strands in our catchment (drinking) water was bad, but because it was going to dump razor sharp glass strands all over the fields where our livestock need to eat. We rushed, but all the stores were sold out of hay. Miraculously, the winds quickly blew it away and we only got a harmless dusting. Our friends just a few miles away had their gutters fill with the glass. What a difference a few miles make.

The toxic volcanic gasses were yet another story beyond causing plant killing acid rain...

Those were crazy times and I am glad I got to experience them (though nowhere as intimately as you). I recall going to Pahoa for dinner one weekend during the height of the eruption; the sky was glowing red like what you would imagine Armageddon would look like. Yet they were having live music in town that night and everyone was just sort of walking around fairly immune to it all. It was a bit surreal.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Luau Time

Just curious if it’s random nilly willy..

Not random, just depends on where earthquake is located and how strong it is.

Guaranteed you will feel an earthquake eventually on island, regardless of where you're at.

[terracore]

Originally Posted by Grassyknoll

Those were crazy times and I am glad I got to experience them (though nowhere as intimately as you). I recall going to Pahoa for dinner one weekend during the height of the eruption; the sky was glowing red like what you would imagine Armageddon would look like. Yet they were having live music in town that night and everyone was just sort of walking around fairly immune to it all. It was a bit surreal.

Surreal is the only word I can think of to describe it. When I was a kid our house/property in Oregon got ash dumped on it repeated from Mt. Saint Helens. We watched the volcano erupt. But it was a long ways away. The Leilani eruption was more... intimate... for lack of a better word.

[Grassyknoll]

Originally Posted by terracore

Surreal is the only word I can think of to describe it. When I was a kid our house/property in Oregon got ash dumped on it repeated from Mt. Saint Helens. We watched the volcano erupt. But it was a long ways away. The Leilani eruption was more... intimate... for lack of a better word.

I lived in Anchorage Alaska during the Mt. St. Helens eruptions and we had ash landing up there too.

[terracore]

Maybe this is a good opportunity to remind people what to do during an earthquake. Or what not to do. I was always told to "stand in a doorway" but it turns out that is actually the last place you want to be.

https://earthquakekitguide.com/earth...-an-earthquake

A lot of it is going to depend on where you are when the earthquake hits. When the 5.5 hit I was eating lunch in my car at Reeds Bay. The car's suspension magnified the shaking so I didn't know how strong the quake was. The tsunami sirens didn't go off but I decided to drive away from the water anyway.

When the 6.9 hit I was in an office. There were some things on wheels that rolled all the way across the floor. If they were heavy they could have potentially injured somebody. Again the tsunami sirens didn't go off but I was again by the water and I left the area. I found out later the trigger threshold for the sirens to go off was 7.0.

Speaking of water, in a large earthquake you have to be aware that your catchment tank could fail. There was a house in HOVE that was knocked off it's post and pier when the tank failed and the wall of water hit it. This wasn't during the earthquake, it was because the tank wasn't assembled correctly.

[Luau Time]

Originally Posted by terracore

Maybe this is a good opportunity to remind people what to do during an earthquake. Or what not to do. I was always told to "stand in a doorway" but it turns out that is actually the last place you want to be.

https://earthquakekitguide.com/earth...-an-earthquake

A lot of it is going to depend on where you are when the earthquake hits. When the 5.5 hit I was eating lunch in my car at Reeds Bay. The car's suspension magnified the shaking so I didn't know how strong the quake was. The tsunami sirens didn't go off but I decided to drive away from the water anyway.

When the 6.9 hit I was in an office. There were some things on wheels that rolled all the way across the floor. If they were heavy they could have potentially injured somebody. Again the tsunami sirens didn't go off but I was again by the water and I left the area. I found out later the trigger threshold for the sirens to go off was 7.0.

Speaking of water, in a large earthquake you have to be aware that your catchment tank could fail. There was a house in HOVE that was knocked off it's post and pier when the tank failed and the wall of water hit it. This wasn't during the earthquake, it was because the tank wasn't assembled correctly.

I also read that crouching in a corner, especially next to furniture (not a window) is a safe place since roofs fall inward into a room and not into the corner.

[terracore]

Funny you mentioned window. I was staying in a hotel in LA and they had a "earthquake fact sheet" with pointers like "stay away from the windows". As my luck would have it, I was shaken awake that night by an earthquake. In my half-asleep state my first instinct was to look out the window, so that's what I did. Then I remembered "stay away from the windows!" so I moved away from them.

I was on the top floor of the hotel. The higher up you go in a high-rise the more magnified the shaking is, like a pole whipping back and forth.