Earthquakes, You Rock!

SoCal got hit with quite a tremor yesterday morning. An earthquake measuring 5.2 with the epicenter in/or near Chino Hills shook most of SoCal region and was felt as far away as Las Vegas. I was actually in the library (in SD) killing time shortly before noon when the building began to sway just every so slightly, but enough for us seasoned earthquake veterans to know what was going on. Fortunately, no books flew off any shelves, no people were injured, nobody panicked and it was business as usual a few minutes later. Out of all the natural disasters the SoCal region is prone to at one time or another--earthquakes are the ones I fear the most (and have an incredible respect for).

The last big one to hit us was the 1994 Northridge quake: this 6.7 monster was by far the worst and most terrifying of all the ones (mostly minor) I've experienced. It hit just after 4:30 a.m.; I was living in Venice Beach at the time and fully remember the ground shaking so violently as I lay in bed that I clearly thought the second floor of my apartment building would collapse on top of me! Even though I'm a somewhat heavy sleeper, I was jolted awake at the time it hit, bolted upright in bed and immediately knew this was no dream: I could hear the low rumble of the earth, car alarms shrieking outside, the 'pssst pop' sounds of transformers shorting out, and the squeak of my apartment building's walls as they moved to and fro under the strain of the quake. Luckily, all of my roommates and our building neighbors escaped injuries and damage to our apartments!

I knew it was going to be bad. And when the sun rose, the amount of destruction in the quake's wake was surreal--I couldn't believe it: there were entire spans of freeway overpasses that had collapsed, twisted and bent train rails, glass and brick facades on high-rise buildings that had been shaken loose and crashed onto vehcles on the street crushing them like tin cans, lots of terrified people standing in front of their homes too afraid to go back in for fear of aftershocks, and building after building after building either completely destroyed or on the verge of collapse.

However, the images and video taken from near the epicenter in the San Fernando Valley were unreal: streets with gaping cracks and holes stretching for blocks spewing water and fire at the same time due to ruptured underground water mains and natural gas pipelines, homes ablaze from those fires, the collapse of a section of the Bullock's (now Macy's) department store at Northridge Fashion Center, and the collapse of a three-story apartment building in Northridge--the upper two floors 'pancaking' onto the first floor. In the end, around 70 people died and nearly $12.5 billion dollars in damage was caused as a result of the quake. The fact that this powerful earthquake struck literally right under an area of 7 million people with so few casualties still amazes me to this day and is something I never again hope to experience! The experts stated at the time that the region was lucky in that the quake struck on a holiday and that if it had come later during the day, the death toll and number of injuries would have been catastrophic.

An interesting aside is that many L.A. based TV shows like Judge Judy were taping at the time of the quake. Channel 4, the local NBC affiliate, was broadcasting its regular live late-morning newscast as the quake hit and to their credit, the anchors showed incredible restraint and professionalism while commenting on whether it was in fact an earthquake they were experiencing even as the studio stage shook and overhead lights swayed!

Earthquakes naturally do rock!