trochee: (Default)
trochee ([personal profile] trochee) wrote2006-10-07 08:37 pm

please keep both hands inside the car

I was sitting on the sofa in the living room, reading a book. [livejournal.com profile] imtboo was in the bedroom, changing her clothes after a shower.

I heard a crick-crack sound from an outer wall and window, and felt the sofa shake a little bit, like a big truck had just pulled down the alley, fast.

"Did you feel that?" I asked D.

"Feel what?" she said. I decided it had probably just been somebody moving furniture downstairs, or dropping a box, or something.

A few minutes later, [livejournal.com profile] beckyb called, and I mentioned what I had observed. She reminded me that there are professionals for this task.

Turns out it really did happen. (here's a plot, there at 02:48 UTC).

[Update Monday: that makes this quake slightly less powerful than the Korean artificial quake.]

[identity profile] faithhopetricks.livejournal.com 2006-10-08 07:07 am (UTC)(link)
I didn't feel that, but yikes!

[identity profile] chachachana.livejournal.com 2006-10-08 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
i thought that sounded familiar!

glad it was just a 4. any cracking in your plaster?

[identity profile] trochee.livejournal.com 2006-10-08 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
it was a 4 a long way away; I didn't see any cracking in our house at all. Just a little bouncing and the sound of the windows shifting in their frame.

[identity profile] chachachana.livejournal.com 2006-10-08 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
it's interesting to me how they differ; i don't know if this is due to geographic location or what? here, they feel like you are taking a slow ride on a bed of jello

[identity profile] trochee.livejournal.com 2006-10-08 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
well, we're in a brick apartment building on the third floor in a dense urban neighborhood. I'm sure that different kinds of buildings resonate differently.

When I was in Redmond for the Nisqually quake in 2001, I was out in the parking lot before the shaking stopped, and the whole asphalt suburban parking lot was swelling like the surface of the ocean.

[identity profile] chachachana.livejournal.com 2006-10-09 05:21 pm (UTC)(link)
swelling like the surface of the ocean

wow!

i've been both inside concrete cinder block buildings and outside for earthquakes and i'd liken them both to the bowl of jello in slow-mo. but both were in urban areas. i haven't ever felt one out in the campo.