Posted on 01/17/2005 3:45:05 AM PST by bd476
"The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program provides earthquake information for current and past earthquakes, hazards and preparedness information, and education resources for teachers and students."
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State Farm lost money on us...
After it reopened, wifey and I still spent as little time as possible in the Northridge Mall. It gave us that goosey claustrophobic feeling being there...
Remembrance BUMP
I was living in South Los Angeles at the time. I had the day off of work (at the time I worked in Santa Monica), so I had no reason to get up early. That is, I didn't...until the world started rockin' and rollin'.
I've been through some quakes, but this was the worst of my memory (I was 24 at the time). I remember turning on the news, and some of the anchors were so anxious to get on the air, they hadn't gone through makeup yet. (I think I had a waterbed, too.)
I remember thinking how much worse the effects of the quake would have been, had it not been the King holiday. I heard about the CHP officer who drove right off of the Antelope (14) Freeway interchange to the 5--he didn't realize that there was no road there. I went back to work the next day, and there were papers all over the place. It looked as if a tornado had hit, instead of an earthquake.
It was a different day, a different time...definitely a day of somber reflection, mixed in with hopeful redetermination for life.
I was living on 15th Street, in Santa Monica. Quake destroyed our house. Wife and kids and I all got injured, but minor. That was it. My wife never went back into that house. We moved out of Southern Cali for Pittsburgh (home state), something we'd been planning to do anyway. After wildfires, torrential rains/mudslides, riots (Rodney King), the quake just pushed us out of there. We didn't want to raise two kids there anyway. Didn't help my career, but it was good for my life in every other way.
11 years down the road, I can say that my family absolutely scored on earthquake insurance in the Northridge Quake. Now that the loss of life and property is a memory, I marvel at how blessed we were. We were renting a house in Santa Monica, and my wife insisted on buying EQ ins. for the CONTENTS and loss of living quarters in event of quake. Ridiculous, I said. She didn't think so. She won. She always wins. We bought the rider for our homeowners...had paid out next to nothing, just a few months before the quake...less than a hundred, I think.
The quake knocked down everything that would fall. And everything that could break...broke. Don't ask me how this happened, but the adjuster, after her visit, asked me if $60,000 would be enough for our belongings and loss of domicile.
I got on the phone to my wife and said, You know that junk we've been dragging around all over the country for 15 years?
That settlement moved us nicely, and was a downpayment on a great house near Pittsburgh, in a great town that's been wonderful for the kids.
I was feeling really jumpy last week at this time.
Yesterday here, Central Oregon Coast, we went out for a swim in the indoor pool and I said to my friend how warm it was and not a whisp of wind.
She said it was kinda eerie and I said yeah I didn't want to say anything but like earthquake weather.
Then she quickly responeded for me to shush.
We have had 4 micro quakes here in Oregon this week after about a month of nothing.
2 in Central Oregon Eugene
1 in Southern Central Oregon
lastly one in the Portland area....
either we area all nervous due to the tsunami or our gut feelings are all alike.
Watch for the birds to all flock out of the trees at once.
We have sea lions that live on the fishing dock at port just two miles away.
Once in awhile one will hang out back here having followed a fishing boat but if I see a bunch come this was I will wonder, and it is not killer whale season yet. (killer whales eat sea lions)
As for my 3 Labs they act bizarre at certain times of the day normally so that is a bit hard to discern.
We have a ghost. A good guy.
My son many years ago said he is chinese and named him Charlie.
I did some research a the local historical society after locals telling my an asian man's tombstone was at the top of the hill one street over.
We have the smell of breakfest foods come into my son's room from time to time, two cieling lights that blink, the door to the garage will open then slam shut, yes there is a gust of wind. And my son knows when Charlie is watching out for him, I also can feel his presense.
About a month ago our Respite care worker went to take out the garbedge and a shadow of a man ran across the wall and out of the garage. SHe was white as a ghost!
History has it that Charlie (he has an asian name) was a cook on the boats that came into port and he lived up at the top of our hill with the Chinese RR workers camp even though he was not Chinese.
A vessell was sinking in the Bay and everybody got off safely and Charlie went to make a last check and found an 18 month old girl and rescued her.
Later that day he was found at the top of the hill in his shack hung, his feet touching the ground so it was obvious it was murder made to look like suicide.
We even saw the official papers sent to his country embassy to notify his family of his death. Hence the headstone up the hill on the land now owned by the Painter family.
Charlie is a good spirit.
I remember it well. How could I ever forget?
I can't believe it's been that long. I remember it so vividly. I had just bought a condo in San Diego. It was the first place I had ever bought. I had just moved in less than a month before. I remember crawling under my desk because I remembered someone once saying you should be under something strong and this was a very strong desk! I remember thinking, even in the short time of the earthquake how ironic that I had just bought it and praying that nothing would happen to me or my new condo!!!!
The fridge thing was surreal, I remember thinking 'nice casters on that thing'.
I called a friend of ours in Sacramento who was just about to go on the air for his morning show telling him about the shaking. the reports starting coming in about the great amount of damage. I didn't realize that morning exactly how strong the quake was.
Later that day I found it interesting listening to KNX radio where the air person would announce yet another aftershock, and timing the four to five seconds before I felt it in Signal Hill. Several months afterward I would wake up in a start when my wife turned over in bed or some load noise shook our windows.
loud noises would also do the same thing!
Maybe CAL's way of saying "goodbye and good riddance". ; )
Part of the Global Consciousness!
>>>The strange part was I woke up about 10 minutes before it started
I was surprised at how calm I was. Once the shaking ended, I estimated it as being at least a 6 on the Richter scale. Maybe it was even The Big One. But I was alive, and the building was still standing.
I grabbed my Walkman and tried finding an FM radio station, but the only ones still on the air were automated music stations. Finally, someone at the Westinghouse-owned automated rock FM station pulled the plug on the music and plugged in the Westinghouse-owned AM all-news station, KFWB. I now knew we had been through something around 6.7 and that there were gas fires in the San Fernando Valley. Freeway transitions had collapsed. I was only a short distance from Ground Zero, but the San Rafael Hills had buffered me from the worst of it.
Now I began to shake.
There was no power. For the rest of the day the ground shook off and on. Just seconds after power was restored in the afternoon, the large 5.6 aftershock took place, and we lost power for a few more hours.
I didn't take a shower until evening.
My place of business in Woodland Hills was very close to Ground Zero, and the all-glass cafeteria blew out all its windows. The water mains had severed, and our hot water boiler had blown up. It was 3 weeks before we got hot water at work again.
The liquifaction zone in Simi Valley had missed me and the Reagan Library because we were standing on granite slopes. Thus the low frequency vibrations that shake buildings apart bypassed us. But the zone ran right through the golf course across the street from me, and the clubhouse was badly damaged.
I went through the 6.8 earthquake here in the Puget Sound region a few years ago, but it was nothing like what I went through in Northridge.
Had I been awakened by the Northridge earthquake, I would have been one of those heart attack casualties you read about, but fortunately I was already awake. As it was, my standard joke goes, I only lost 15 pounds -- all of it brown.
Could you elaborate on 'folks'?
'Was caught in an elevator during a 5.5 aftershock.
I remember getting woke up by that one.
The first real quake I felt as a recent arrival to California.
Actually it has been eleven years.
Maybe... maybe I 'heard' it like some animals can. I was wide awake when it hit.
Odder was my 10 year old step-son - he slept through the whole thing... in the top bunk of a bunk-bed.
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