Quake in Southern California

My rattlin' house! | 8-8-07 | me

[GoforBroke]

Just before the Northridge quake, my dog woke up and jumped off the bed and paced around the room. This woke me and my wife and we first thought intruders but after about 30 seconds we started hearing what sounded like a freight train heading our direction, barreling in from the west. We lived in Burbank at the time and I suppose we heard 10 to 15 seconds of this shaking before it actually hit.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Hurricane Dean is a stalkin’

Earthquakes are a rockin’

Volcanoes are a poppin’

Vick is a coppin

Padilla ain’t gonn be walkin’

and its all Bush’s fault

Cause al Gore is a talkin’

[Zhangliqun]

I slept right through it apparently. I moved out here in ‘88 (SFV) and seemed like we had one big enough to set off car alarms (typically +/-4.5) every few months, but since ‘94, it’s been so quiet. Maybe Northridge blew off a lot of steam. I kind of miss them, they’re sort of fun in a twisted, storm-chaser kind of way.

[Zhangliqun]

Northridge woke me from a sound sleep. I don't think my feet touched the ground between the bed and diving under my pathetic little particle board desk. The TV set fell off the stand and came rolling across the floor toward me.

It was the angriest feeling earthquake I've ever been in, like the building was in the mouth of a Rottweiler. Miraculously, not even one window broke and the TV worked fine. We lost only a beat up old water heater that needed replacing anyway.

The real damage was cracks in the stucco and on the roof, which showed up a few years later in the form of rain dripping through walls and ceilings. Speaking of which, we've had only 2" in the last 18 months. Hope this year is like the season before last when we had record rain around 35".

For non-SoCal-ites, it actually does rain out here, but almost all of it between Christmas and St. Patrick's Day. It's hilarious to watch the news stations around here freak out over the prospect of 1" of rain like it's a hurricane.