The devil you know

[swan_tower]

I’ve noticed two quakes since I moved to California in 2008. One of them was small and brief: it felt like when you’re on the highway and a larger vehicle goes by quickly, so that the wind of its passing makes your car sway momentarily to the side.

The other was last night.

I was trying to fall asleep when it hit. Took me a second or two to figure out that yes, this really was an earthquake. Then it kept going, while my husband woke up and we stared at one another, trying to figure out if we ought to run for a doorway or something. It was strong enough to worry me, not strong enough to be really scary: 6.1, with an epicenter near Napa, maybe fifty-five miles from here. For the people there, it was worse, with injuries and property damage.

I looked up the epicenter and magnitude immediately, because it was better to know than to lie awake wondering. Of course, knowing brings its own perils. That’s a 6.1 at X distance: okay. What would it feel like if it were a 6.1 in, say, Hayward, just across the Bay? Or on the San Andreas Fault, right here on the Peninsula? Actually, that one sounds scarier than it actually is; the San Andreas is more of a problem for SoCal than it is in the Bay. The Hayward Fault is the one we need to be afraid of. What if it were 7.1? The scale is logarithmic; 7.1 is not one-sixth bigger than 6.1. It’s ten times bigger. What if it were 8.1?

Not good thoughts, when you’re trying to get to sleep.

Nothing is damaged here, though Napa wasn’t as lucky. I find myself hoping that the suffering and loss of people there has a silver lining, helping motivate the local and state governments to move forward on some earthquake preparedness measures. We’re already refitting the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, though last time I checked that isn’t due to be finished until 2016; since the aqueduct supplies most of the Bay Area’s drinking water and (pre-refit) could be thoroughly trashed by a big one on the Hayward Fault, that’s a pretty high priority. But there are other things we could be doing, and should. Sure, it’ll cost money. But we’ll lose even more when the East Bay falls down.

In the meanwhile, at least I know what a “proper” earthquake feels like. It’s good to know that, in a way: now I have facts, instead of just imagination.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[starlady]

I think looking up the magnitude & epicenter on USGS immediately is what everyone does.

Do you have your earthquake shoes under the bed?

[swan_tower]

We do now!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, now the wait to find out if it triggers off a big one. For you guys as well as us down here!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what the probability of that is. The last estimate I saw said this was probably the mainshock, though there's a 45% chance of an aftershock at 5.0 or greater in the next week. What I don't know is whether this makes it more likely that a neighboring fault will also go -- we have a lot of them around here, after all.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I'm glad you're okay.

[squishymeister.livejournal.com]

I felt lots of earthquakes in the 18 years that I grew up in SoCal, but only ever 1 earthquake of consequence (The Northridge Quake). I always preferred earthquakes to tornados or hurricanes, because they seem to happen less frequently and *usually* the damage isn't even comparable. But big quakes are scary. I'm glad you were far away from the epicentre for this one. Just remember, duck and cover! (and maybe keep an emergency quake kit in date).