First earthquake

There was a sudden rumbling noise, and mild shaking lasting a couple of seconds, max. As it was happening, at least two different co-workers called out “Earthquake!”, cheerfully.

Immediately I went to the usgs.gov site to make sure – and it was this one.

I was chuffed – finally! You see, I moved to the Bay Area in 2000, and never once in my life had I experienced an earthquake, or at least one that I knew was for real. I had missed minor ones in various ways: 1) in New York for the weekend, 2) out driving at the time, and really didn’t notice anything (in retrospect, did it seem a bit bumpy at one point?), and worst of all, 3) just plain slept through one. Every so often, on the 7th floor of a Yahoo! building, the building would seem to shake, and I checked that same site …. but no, it was just the building. 🙂

So I can check that one off now. (And yes, I know – be careful what you wish for. Yes. 🙂 )

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One response to “First earthquake”

  1. terry chay

    3.4? Hmm, I thought there was a much larger one in 2001 or 2002. I remember my cabinets rattled a bit and I lived on the first floor at the time.

    I was in Pasadena for two decent quakes, one of which was the Northridge quake (1994). I remember thinking a train was going by until I realized that I didn’t live near any trains. We were studying elastodynamics in Kip Thorne’s class so that made it passably interesting, if a bit geeky—you know when you have an aftershock at lunch and think to yourself, oh so there is a difference in speed between the two waves. (Bonus points for timing that difference as a way of measuring the distance from the epicenter.)

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