California Earthquake

Well, we can add a new California experience to our list as we just had a 4.5 earthquake lasting about 8 seconds at 7:49pm Thursday January 8, 2009. A first for us. What an experience - WOW! Right about one hour later a small aftershock, 3.3, hit just for a couple of seconds but enough that we knew it was an aftershock. They downgraded the first one from a 5.0. Now how do they do that? Isn't there machines that register it while it's happening?


Steve and I were just sitting there minding our own business watching Oklahoma once again lose the BSC National Championship, this time to the Florida Gators. All of a sudden the whole house began to shake - we had no idea at first what was happening. It sort of sounded like a big rig outside. Then as it continued and got stronger it hit us that it was an earthquake and we headed for a doorway to stand under. I don't know if that is the right thing to do or not but it's what my memory brought forth from the cob webs of my brain.

When I say the house shook I mean it shook. The epicenter was about 1 1/2 miles away on Hospitality Lane that we drive routinely and ~10 miles deep. From there it radiated out in a circle to surrounding areas. I hear it was even felt a little in L.A.

There are 5 of us getting treatments here within 2 houses of each other. We all went out in the street when it over (don't ask me why) and gathered together joking about holding it down in the neighborhood. None of us had ever experienced one before. Our neighbor in the back half of the duplex thought a car had run into the front of the house. It was a little exciting because it wasn't bad but also scary to think what it could have been.

This map shows some of the faults in southern California and the star shows where the epicenter was. We are in the tips of one of these star points. We are only a couple miles from the center. This state has hundreds of faults. If this is "only a 4.5" I would hate to be here for a larger one! One more reason not to live in California. We may have volcanoes in Washington but they go off every couple hundred years not days.

I count us lucky, it could have been worse. I feel sorry for the people in Costa Rica who also experienced an earthquake which was a 6.2 and lasted about 40 seconds. They had walls come down and currently count 14 dead and 22 missing. We pray for them.