[null and void]

Take the 1994 Northridge earthquake, for example. There are people who absolutely swear the quake shook them around for at least one minute. Other people report a sharp jolt that woke them up, but only lasted for a few seconds. The seismometer records show local shaking for about 20 seconds.

And I has a cousin one mile from the epicenter who slept through it. In a top bunk.

[capitan_refugio]

My kids slept through the Northridge quake also, but I was about 50 miles from the epicenter (near Ventura). I was awake, however, because our infant youngest daughter had awakened at 4:00 a.m. to be fed. So I was wide awake and sitting on the edge of the bed, as my wife put the baby back to sleep. Being the geologist that I was, I started counting the seconds between the first P-wave arrival and the first S-wave arrival to calculate how far I was from the epicenter. As the surface waves rolled in, I thought better of my dedication to science and took a position next to my wife, on floor, covered in blankets and pillows. I rode out the remainder of the earthquake with only my butt exposed to danger.