Earthquake! Cool!

[Villano]

I've lived on the east coast my entire life, so it took a few seconds to register that it was an earthquake. We get the occasional low flying jet or helicopter that causes the house to shake, so that's what I initially thought it was. When it kept going on (and I realized I could feel the shaking in the floor) I knew it was an earthquake.

It wasn't a scary moment, although my dogs ran around the house, barking. The quake did do a little bit of damage. I noticed the pipe connecting the gas tank to my house had shifted a little, so I called the gas company. They found a slight leak and just tightened it up with a wrench. Not a major problem.

 

[Bullgrit]

I really hate it when we in California go through earth quake craziness over a moderate (5.0 - 6.2) quake that does no serious damage. I especially hate it when they start repeating the same 10 minute long lecture about how earthquakes work (every hour and on the hour), even though they gave us the lecture the last time a major quake occurred and/or flattened a city. I absolutely loath it when they start pulling out you-tube and cell phone video showing the earthquake occurring (without anything breaking on camera, showing people running like crazy, and only showing things swinging or waves being made in a pool a narrator say " [insert phrase] earth quake!").

That said, you can just imagine how I feel about the national coverage of your east coast yawn-tastic (by Californian standards) earth-quake.

Well, it is a news item. It's a once in a life time event for most people on the east coast. But since there was no real damage or injury, just some surprise and "wasn't that cool", the news coverage shouldn't last more than just today. I say, "shouldn't," but I think we all know, so long as it is an otherwise slow news time, the media will continue to talk about it until Irene hits somewhere.

Bullgrit

 

[Relique du Madde]

So let the kids in the east have their earthquake panic fun. it probably is the only one they'll ever see if they don't travel to the west coast.

I say, "shouldn't," but I think we all know, so long as it is an otherwise slow news time, the media will continue to talk about it until Irene hits somewhere.

You see that is what I don't get. The east gets hurricanes and you would think the earth shaking won't phase them since if you get stuck in a hurricane ravaged area you could drown, get electrocuted, sucked into a twister and flung out several miles away, or be impaled by something like a 4x4. That to me is scarry considering that nothing in California is built to withstand the weakest tornado (which we get about once every two years).

Yet going by the news reports everyone seemed unnerved by this earthquake (maybe they only showed us the nervous responses to help boost Californian moral) .

Seeing how bad the east coast reacted this time, I would hate to see how things will turn out when the New Madrid fire's it's kill shot and causes everything east of the the Mississippi to be flattened.*


* IF the San Andres were to go off, I at content in knowing how screwed I am due to being:
1) In a liquefaction zone
2) In a Tsunami flood plane
3) About 30 miles from the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The reason people reacted so strongly is that the affected area not only very rarely has earthquakes (this was the biggest in over a hundred years), it doesn't have disasters at all.

Hurricanes damage Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas fairly regularly. If a storm gets to the mid-atlantic, it usually has lost most of its strength and is basically a big rainstorm. There's also never been any kind of tsunami here, and the terrain is not flat like the midwest, so tornadoes are not frequent. It's also not that cold here; the blizzards the past couple of years were aberrant and also received a ton of news coverage; other years we barely get snow. Maryland and Virginia contain many of the oldest buildings in the country, and most of them haven't been subject to any real disasters.

So it's really a shock. My mother works for FEMA so I know a fair amount about the various forces of nature, but this was my (and most of the area's) first earthquake. The idea of the ground moving under you is kind of disturbing. There wasn't any real danger; it was just the surprise of it.

Obviously, people who've lived elsewhere and moved here mostly laughed it off, as they should.

Also, link.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Yet going by the news reports everyone seemed unnerved by this earthquake (maybe they only showed us the nervous responses to help boost Californian moral) .

As has been said, it's really, really rare to have an earthquake out here that not only can be felt, but actually sways buildings and causes damage, however minor*.

They're not unknown, and the possibility is pretty much all along the coast, from New York to Charleston SC. BUT, an earthquake is way down the list of natural disasters we can expect.

As Ahn mentioned, we do get tornadoes, as well as hurricanes and blizzards. But we haven't had a hurricane hit the east coast in almost a decade, and again, as Ahn mentioned, they tend to deflect out into the Atlantic or have weakened tremendously by the time they do hit. And tornadoes, despite looking scary, really don't do that much damage overall. Sure, if you're in the direct path it's going to suck, but if you're not, it doesn't do anything other than look scary and maybe fling debris in your direction. In the fairly densely-populated East, they're more likely to run into stuff, but we don't get the monster ones that the Midwest and South get, either. (The ones in the South are vicious bastards that sneak up behind hills and then hit!)

* - There was some damage to the National Cathedral, and there're reports of cracks in the Washington Monument. And some action figures on my bookshelves fell over.

Seeing how bad the east coast reacted this time, I would hate to see how things will turn out when the New Madrid fire's it's kill shot and causes everything east of the the Mississippi to be flattened.*

I'm from there (Union County, Kentucky; we're where Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky meet). Fun fact, we got out of school my freshman year of high school because an earthquake was theoretically predicted to be coming from the New Madrid fault! My brother was a junior, so we took advantage of the day to visit Miami of Ohio for him.

It wouldn't kill the east coast. By the time the shockwaves got there, it wouldn't do much more than what we had today, IIR my recollections of reading about the 1812-13 quakes ringing bells in Boston.

Now, Memphis would be a disaster, and there'd be very significant damage for a good distance around there, and not all buildings are up to revised codes yet. But they are making preparations, and most of the individual houses are timber, which'll at least flex, though that won't do much about gas lines...

Brad

 

[Umbran]

Seeing how bad the east coast reacted this time, I would hate to see how things will turn out when the New Madrid fire's it's kill shot and causes everything east of the the Mississippi to be flattened.*

Unlikely. See: New Madrid Seismic Zone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In October 2009, a team composed of University of Illinois and Virginia Tech researchers headed by Amr S. Elnashai, funded by FEMA, considered a scenario where all three segments of the New Madrid fault ruptured simultaneously. The report found Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri most severely impacted, with Illinois and Kentucky also impacted but not as seriously. The cities of Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri would be severely damaged."

That's rather short of flattening everything east of the Mississippi.

 

[Relique du Madde]

That's rather short of flattening everything east of the Mississippi.

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

 

[Sutekh]

Im surprised someone hasnt blammed the government for funding a secret project to tap the earths core for power and in doing so cause the earthquakes (ie Christchurch, etc).


Perhaps the guys in Westboro have a view on the latest Earthquake...

 

[Bullgrit]

Yet going by the news reports everyone seemed unnerved by this earthquake (maybe they only showed us the nervous responses to help boost Californian moral) .

Seeing how bad the east coast reacted this time

The news will only show the most extreme cases. People who reacted with, "Hey, that was weird/cool. Okay, what's next on our meeting agenda," don't get news time. They're boring for news.

Always remember: The news never shows the most accurate point of view; the news only shows the most "interesting" point of view. The news is as much about entertainment as about information.

The east gets hurricanes and you would think the earth shaking won't phase them since if you get stuck in a hurricane ravaged area you could drown, get electrocuted, sucked into a twister and flung out several miles away, or be impaled by something like a 4x4.

Differences:

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.

3- After a hurricane, you can look and see the damage. After an earthquake, it takes engineers to examine and detect damage.

Bullgrit

 

[Rabbitbait]

Greetings from Christchurch. A 5.9 huh - that's big enough to get you ducking for cover. You have my empathy. We've had a 7.1, a couple of 6.3's and a heap of smaller ones. We are now up to 7000 aftershocks and the entire Central Business District is still cordoned off after 6 months.

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.

Good luck, I hope there wasn't too much damage and I hope no-one was hurt.