Earthquake! Cool!

[Umbran]

You just had to destroy all the earthquake sensationalist myths that Hollywood, fringe scientists, and the SyFi channel likes to pump out and perpetuate.

BWAHAHAHAHA! Destruction! Dead bits of misinformation lie all around me; smoking ruins of myth, misunderstanding, and willful ignorance dot the landscape! Victory is mine! Mine, I tell you! MINE!

 

[Bullgrit]

My sympathy goes to the town that the quake was under - there's a world of difference between a quake in your general area and a quake under your feet.

Well, 5.8 is nothing compared to your 7.1, (less than 1/10th the power?). Even for the town right on the epicenter, it wasn't major.

Y'all had a full-scale natural disaster. We had just a wide-scale mutual experience.

Bullgrit

 

[Relique du Madde]

1- A hurricane is known to be coming days in advance. An earthquake is suddenly happening *right now*. (Sneaky tornadoes are rare, but we've had them; and they don't come out of a clear blue sky.)

2- A hurricane, we in the southeast are used to and know how to prepare for. An earthquake, we've never felt and don't know what to do.

You're talking to a Californian. The opposite applies here.

We are prepared for earthquakes we know they can and will happen at anytime (even "RIGHT NOW!"). For this reason they are a "suprise you are screwed" scary.

Tornadoes and hurricanes are scary because we don't know how to deal with them and because of the whole "horror movie sluggish stalking killer phenomena," so to us it's a fright of a different nature considering they are so rare. It also doesn't help that Californians (especially in the southland) are ill prepared for even the lightest rain, which is why every storm in California is over sensationalized to the point of becoming "Stormagedon 201x! with a chance of Tornadoes, flooding, or waterspouts."

 

[Rabbitbait]

Aftershocks are the thing for me. Yes we've had the disaster, but one year later we are still having generally at least one and generally two 4.0 or larger aftershocks every week.

It means you can't do a lot of the cleanup or repair work because everything just gets re-broken. It also means you get a wee adrenaline burst quite often as you asssess whether the shake feels like its going to get worse, or whether it's just a little one. Quakes that would have sent me running a year ago now won't get me out of my chair.

I tell ya, earthquakes would be a nicer kind of disaster if they were not packaged with all the aftershocks.

But I think the Christchurch situation is considered very abnormal. I don't know - I think Japan is still getting aftershocks as well.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Yours was caused by an under sea volcano, and I bet it is still active. I think that makes you life a bit more precarious.