Citizen science, moderate temblor version

[ritaxis]

So we're all sitting around the house, doing what we do (after a delicious meal of sauteed mixed forest mushrooms -- grisette, chanterelle, and calyptrata -- and brown rice pilaf with dried craterellus. It rained yesterday!). The house begins to shake. Earthquake. Nobody moves. The house keeps shaking, harder and harder. And it goes on. So we all simultaneously, swiftly but without rushing, go to the nearest doorways and stand in them for what seems like a very very long time till the house stops shaking. As soon as we're sure it's over Emma and I both dive back to our computers to report it to the USGS recent earthquake site. Our earthquake isn't even on the map when we start filling out the forms!

The USGS computer automagically produces an earthquake report from the reports us citizens file and I think a few sensors here and there. Refreshing it a few minutes later gets an updated report which has been reviewed by a seismologist.

What we got: a moderate (5.6) quake centered 15 km northeast of San Jose City Hall, at 9 km deep, occuring at 8:04:59 pm PDT. Probability of strong aftershock in the next week: 30%. Of a quake stronger than the first one: 5-10%. Expecting 15 or so weak aftershocks. If you click around the site, you'll find shake maps, topo maps of the region, etc. The shake map is not up for this one yet, alas.

I love this stuff. I do have to admit I got kind of concerned when the earthquake kept going on and on.

Comments

I gotta give it to you as being teh brave

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

Here the worst disaster is a tornado, but our basement is likely set halfway deep into limestone so we have a good, sturdy shelter.

The whole thought of the earth moving in an evil way is terrifying.

Best wishes.

Re: I gotta give it to you as being teh brave

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Whereas I am much more frightened of tornados than earthquakes! What happens to the rest of your house while you're hiding in the storm cellar? Whereas, with good building practices, you don't lose much of anything even in a pretty big earthquake.

part of it is

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

that living in the city center and the geography of Kansas City, for whatever reason we've never had a tornado plow through the part of downtown where I live. As far as I know, We're just above the ancient flood plain on the bluffs (the ancient crow roosts I've mentioned) and I think it breaks up weather flow sufficently to crack tornados.

While I was still working at home we did have one extremely weird weather event--the sky got the evil green that it gets duriing tornado weather, I thought I was seeing Wall clouds but could not be certain because the summer tree cover is pretty large. And the pressure seemed to be building (I had windows open because it was not too hot, not too cold). All of a sudden I could hear something like someone walking through grass.... really big grass. It passed to the west of the house, but it was some kind of line-wind phenomena, not severe enough to do more than stir the trees. But in an in-line fashion. Pretty creepy.

In an earthquake,everything manmade and a lot of natural features can go wonky if it shakes long enough. In even a severe tornado, if you get to a safe shelter underground, you may lose property but you don't lose lives.

I expect the whole perception of danger thing is related to what one grew up with, too. Though I know I would never want to live within the splash-range of the coasts.(tsunami/hurricane)

Re: Citizen science, moderate temblor versio

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i am subscribed to the USGS automated messages, and saw this come in pretty much right away. glad it wasn't any stronger; that's right smack in the middle of a fair chunk of my friends list.

i was once close to a 5.7 in southern california; that went on and on as well. it was kinda ... exciting, and curious, and disconcerting.

Re: part of it is

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it's what you're used to. But fire still freaks me out, and I spent my childhood in fire country. Flood bothers me too. I think earthquakes are the least scary because they are the most discrete. Shake, rattle, roll, it's over. More or less.

That description of the wind thing is spine-tingly. I'm trying to imagine the line-wind.

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

I was in San Jose at the family home when it hit. What I noticed about it was the unambiguity- it started with such a bang and a shaking that it was obviously at *least* a moderate quake.

I was surprised it wasn't larger than 5.6. It felt like a stronger quake that stopped quickly- i.e. if it had gone on for a few more seconds, it would have been difficult to walk, and more would have fallen down than just one jar.

An ambiguous quake is one that takes several seconds to figure out what's happening. At first it just seems like you've got slight dizziness, or that a very large truck is going by, or that someone is walking on the roof. If it's a mild quake, that's all that happens. The previous moderate quakes I've been in start ambiguously, and then keep getting a bit worse until your body just naturally carries you to the outside.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Was it short where you were? You were closer to the epicenter than us, but it was a long, long quake for us. There was nothing ambiguous about it, for sure -- it was a quake from the get go. It actually was a bit hard to get to the doorway, but not hard enough to indicate magnitude, so on the survey I said no to that question. Not hard. But I had to think about those two steps.

My body naturally takes me to a doorway, not to the outside. We have been trained, my body and I.

I thought for a few seconds it might be another "pretty big one," located someplace rather far away, but the TV just went on and on with normal programming, so I figured probably not.

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

Your training, and mine, is out-of-date.

What I'm seeing is that the latest and best advice is "Drop, Cover and Hold On" during a quake. See, for example:
http://www.earthquakecountry.info/dropcoverholdon/

They say that flying objects and falls from attempts to move are a big cause of injury.

They also say (as do many other reputable sites) to ignore anything by that "triangle of life" guy, because his theories are neither tested nor applicable to earthquake-code buildings, nor is there any evidence he himself is the expert he says he is.

[zeborah]

The NZ earthquake website has an RSS feed which I've added to my feedreader at work. (I work in an engineering library, and earthquakes are important to civil engineering, so it's vaguely work-related...)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of the triangle of life guy until you mentioned him and I googled him. He's a transparent crank. It's simply untrue that people under sturdy objects such as desks, doorways, and cars are "crushed to death every time." In the Pretty Big One, there were very few deaths. One was a man trapped in a car for several days, who ultimately died of kidney failure days after he was got out of the car. The car did not crush him (though he was a bit crunched): it saved him, and if the rubble around him had been a bit shallower and he'd gotten to the hospital earlier he'd have lived.

The other deaths were in older buildings that had not been retrofitted yet, or most tragically, in a building next door to a building which had not been retrofitted, which fell to the side: and somebody who ran into a spooked horse on the highway.

In our case, the doorways were the closest objects to get under for the nice fellow and Emma. I could have gone under the desk I was at, except for my training! and my old stiff joints.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

now rss feeds for earthquakes is a little more dedicated than I am!

Our link to the USGS site is from the cruzio homepage, which has a nifty menu right up top to take you to their collection of "weather" links, which includes the USGS site. Well, we do have a phrase in Northern California going back a hundred years: "eathquake weather," which refers to unseasonal sultriness in springtime (and by extension, sometimes, any unseasonal weather), such as occured on April 18, 1906, in San Francisco, before the Fire and Earthquake.

5.6

[towse.livejournal.com]

We were out to dinner down on Post. The first shake had a "who bumped my chair" feel to it, but there was no one near, so I knew what it was. We felt three good heaves. The shaking lasted 15-20sec. I don't think most of the people in the restaurant even noticed, they being a bit more rowdy than the two you know.

The Chron says it was the strongest since the Loma Prieta. I need to get over to my mom's place in east San Jose and make sure nothing fell down and made a mess.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

The last thing the local NBC news said at 11:30 or so was the quake, but they didn't have any details.

I've been in two quakes. The first was when we lived in Edmonds, near Seattle, and I was trying school again because we'd just been transferred there and my classroom was a (hmmm, box up on concrete blocks with steps up to it). Our teacher had us get out of the box which was a good idea because it fell off the concrete blocks.

The other one was a tiny one here in Manassas. I live two blocks from our train yard and I thought it was just a rough train mating until the news later.

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

The Merc is saying that over 100,000 books fell from the shelves on the top floors of the 8 story SJSU/ San Jose library*. Descriptions say the building swayed- as it was designed to do- like a palm tree in a tropical breeze.

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* The city of San Jose and SJ State University combined their libraries into one super library.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Ha! I just read your similar reply on ML and realized who you were!

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

Yes. Sometime soon I'm going to switch over to my LJ and not the email address being the K from Sunnydale link.