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5.2 Earthquake Shakes Up SF Bay Area
Joe Kaz wrote in (along with a number of other concerned folks): "There was a 5.2 Earthquake in Gilroy, CA, 70 miles south of San Francisco. The epicenter was 4.7 miles below surface. It lasted for about 10 seconds, and it did seem like a long time. Everything shook for a while, and it was a little scary. No reports of damage yet. Hope everyone is ok." I've got a report from my sisters father-in-law in gilroy (the epicenter) and he barely noticed it. Nate Oostendorp noted that "My stereo shook a little" in Walnut Creek. The SF Gate story on the quake notes that there are some phones out in some small parts of San Jose. The usgs has an event monitoring page if you are interested.
Didn't feel a thing. No apparent damage. No injuries. Carry on.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
On the peninsula, between SF and SJ it was barely felt. The house shook a bit, but just two fast shakes and nothing more. Definitely not making any damage and hardly waking up anyone who was already asleep.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Until an earthquake's magnitude rises above 6.5, it's really not so bad.
Buildings that cannot withstand a 5.2 earthquake should be investigated.
I have been pwned because my
No worries, seen worse. Be a good Californian and go back to bed.
Heh. Course I live in Oregon now so I bet if they had a 5.2 out here everyone would be out on the street talking about how scared they were.
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Okay, forget karma or what not for a second. Honestly, why is this on slashdot? I'm not sure I approve of reporting minor earthquakes in San Francisco when I know hundreds of people die every day or so in huge catastrophes across the world. I'm an American, but I'm a little sick of this American-centric view of what's important. Either all minor disasters get reported, or none of them.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
The shaking radiates in waves from the epicenter (which is deep in the earth, to boot), so there is rarely as much shaking at the epicenter as in surrounding cities. It's just that common epicenters get the side effect of skewed roads and cracked foundations from the fault motion. :)
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Ok, flamebait aside, I still find it amazing that people can deal with this stuff on a regular basis. I've been through quakes a few times, and I have absolutely no desire to repeat the experience.
How on earth do all you Californians deal with it? I would be heading out on the next flight.
Give me nor-easters and rude subway drivers any day...;-)
Come on, give it up, that's
If you felt the quake, or if you were in the area and didn't feel it, be sure to record your observations here so that the data can be displayed and analyzed.
It's amazing to see 700 responses be recorded in about 20 some minutes, and more data just helps the cause of the USGS. It was minor up here near the bay, but hey, it was my first :) You can access the current map as well.
But really, amplitude-wise it was no great shakes.
And the brethren went away edified.
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X401
Go there if you are in the area of the quake. Report what you felt. Don't make shit up, don't troll the USGS.
I felt some moderate shaking. Biggest quake I've ever been in, but I just moved to Palo Alto from New York. Neat, but scary.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
WOW....I felt it here in Portland, OR.
Wait a sec...no, that was just my g/f rolling out of bed. Nevermind.
The quake hit in the 3rd period, while the Avs and Sharks were tied 1-1 (both goals having come in the 2nd, within 30 seconds of one another). It may have jolted the announcers, but it sure didn't faze goaltenders Evgeni Nabokov or Patrick Roy, who never let anything through in that period. The game was finally decided in OT, on a goal by Avs forward Peter "The Great" Forsberg, winning the game 2-1 and sending the series back to Pepsi Center in Denver for Game 7.
GO AVS!
Be who you are...and be it in style!
I am in Foster City, 75 km away from the Epicenter. Yup, I felt it. First thing I did was to shout "Sweetieeee, wake up!" to my husband who has *just* gone to sleep. But it only lasted for 10 secs or so, so it was not too bad.
In Greece I've seen worse that this quake.
And in fact, I was feeling like it would be a quake today. In Greece, (older) people have three things to undedify earthquakes that are going to happen in the next few hours:
1. If the climate is unsusally dryly hot and it feels weird to your.. ears (there is an unusual sound of silence, a low pitch sound that masks the other small sounds). It is a different sort of heat. It is like humid heat, but very dry at the same time. I can't explain it better in words, sorry.
2. If for some weird reason, while you just sit somewhere fine and daddy, your ear just "blocks", like it does when water gets inside when you are in the bath or something.
3. If the dogs just bark all day, and no matter what you do to them, they just don't stop barking.
At least these are the ways older people in Greece get a clue about nature's surprises.
a news for nerds? or a slow news day? or maybe another evidence for the stranglets? hee-hee
geek page at KY speaks
When the BIG one comes, all the land east of the San Andreas (or mebbe Hayward) Fault will slide off into the Atlantic. Betcha wish ya were in sunny ... uh ... cool and windy (and often foggy during the summer) Santa Cruz, eh? :-)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Fortunately in California the building code does require this, so a 5.2 isn't likely to be a problem unless you happen to be very close or at a point where the P-waves and S-waves reinforce.
Apparently there have actually been four events. First one was an "Is this an earthquake?" That gave way directly to the 5.2 shake, which lasted a few seconds before diminishing. Whole-building motion, and you could feeling the building twisting and deforming. But no apparent damage, and subsided quickly.
/ 36 . 8.-123.-121.html
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Maps/US2
Couple of aftershocks (they say) but they were much lighter, at around 2.5, and weren't felt here (at least, not by me in a quiet apartment...)
NOooooooo! Not the SourceForge Bay Area!!! i hope my projects are backed up
Got friends?
Earthquake 5.2 - the new Linux disto of choice!
Actually I think it's pretty damn interesting. The article poll too (an underutilized feature in slashdot, imho).
sulli
RTFJ.
I was just watching ESPN, and they're like "We've had an earthquake and we'll be back for the third period. The game was almost over.
Glad to see that not even earthquakes will stop a hockey game!
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
WalNut Crik???? Danville???? ;)
I am in Antioch, but kindly leave my sausage alone....
enough is too much
As there is probably more rain in Vancouver, WA then there is in Vancouver, BC...
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
First thing I thought when I saw the story was "ooh, I'll click on the event monitoring page." Then, as the page took a while to load up, I suddenly realized that idiots like me were slashdotting a very important resource.
I've been checking that USGS earthquake page since I moved to California a couple of years ago. The only two website worth reading these days are the CDC and the USGS. I'm proud of my tax money going to provide such in-depth time wasting. Carry on, beloved Federal agencies.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
This was the perfect earthquake for an earthquake virgin like me. It was just strong enough to know that it wasn't my imagination but not so strong that anyone got hurt or any property got damaged. I'm in Redwood City, CA and it was a thrilling experience.
--Asa
Did anybody else out there read this story late at night and see "John Katz" instead of "Joe Kaz", and wonder why he didn't post the story himself? Of course, even in my bleary-eyed state I knew it wasn't Katz posting, as it was only a paragraph of text.
First off I live in one of the super windy portions of the San Francisco. Wind funnels down market and the various hills so that I experience regular wind blasts.
This was just like a normal wind blast, in that my huge windows pushed in and the pressure changed in the room. Then instead of slowly going back out like normal the windows shot out REALLY changing the air pressure in the room. It was at this point that I realized it wasn't just a normal blast of wind. Then the TV shook, the shelves moved and the windows came back at me.
Basically it felt to me like a roller coaster... gentle turn (rolling sensation), jolt (hard turn), roll, roll, and a sigh as it was over. Stuff shook but nothing too special and nothing was broke. I also happen to live in a new building designed to handle big earthquakes.
The cool thing was looking out my windows and watching the city light up as everyone turned on their lights and went to their own windows.
--- I do not moderate.
Number two, of course if the ice was damaged severely enough, the game would be suspended and postponed.
CNN has it under the US section. It's not a large enough story to make it to the front page.
This is not news. It happens all the time. The only thing exciting about it is watching the reaction of the tourists.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Many years back, we had a 7.4 earthquake followed by a 6.5 aftershock, and many other aftershocks of decreasing intensity. The death count? One person who had a heart attack because of it.
Everyone will like to say that they're more devastating when they are in heavily populated areas. That's completely untrue. They're more devestating when they are in areas where buildings are made extremely cheaply. I had a very large TV jump off of a table and about 5 feet across the room. I had a set of shelves with quite a load on them shake so hard that they damaged the wally they were up against. And in all of that, not a single bit of structural damage. Not a single bridge needed the slightest of repairs (and we've got plenty of those).
Then, a year later, a 6.4 earthquake hits Los Angeles, dozens of people die, several bridges collapse, and buildings collapse. It's simple folks. If you live somewhere that every contractor is cutting corners, even a small quake will destroy everything in sight.
I'd been through a hurricane when I was living back east. I'd rather have 8.0 earthquakes every week, than a hurricane once a decade. Hell, earthquakes really don't do any significant damage. If you were driving, you wouldn't even know that there was an earthquake.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I hate to tell you, but parts of Israel are somewhat earthquake-prone. I lived in Jerusalem for a few months back in 94/95, and I apparently slept through an earthquake which woke up my 3 room-mates. Not a big one, but bigger than we tend to get here in the UK :-) Wasn't there a big earthquake in the 1920s which caused a lot of damage in S'fat? What do you think the Jordan valley is, if not a fault line?
And Russia is so mind-bogglingly big that I bet there are some areas which are hot zones...
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
5.2 Earthquake Barely Nudges San Francisco
Are we going to start reporting heavy rainfall in Hawaii next?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Sort of like my geology teacher told me. All the geologists in CA live up in the granite on the mountains and what not. Everyone else lives out on mud and silt, so when the earthquakes come, they sure feel it.
This is why St. Louis is really a bad place to live, it's all mud and silt around the Mississippi, and a prime place for an earthquake (was a real big one there about 100 years ago maybe?). If a major earthquake happened there, the ground is so unstable that it would probably level the city.
Basically just repeating what you said, it's not the strength of the earthquake, but what's under you that determines how much damage is done.
What?
here's mine, northridge earthquake, I dont remember exactly the date, but I wsa playing Wing Commander I or II, I dont remember which, and I had *just* blown up some huge ass ship, a carrier I think -> My speakers are blasting the sound of the ship exploding, and at that percise moment the earthquake begins, and as the ground begins to rumble Im thinking, "holy shit thats a great sound effect", then I realize whats going on and dash to the doorframe where your supposed to be in an earthquake. I think I ended up loosing the level to, got attacked while my ship was unmanned :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
There's an EDIS Bulletin on the quake, but it's a routine report, with a priority too low to generate an E-mail message from EDIS. No indications of any significant emergencies to be dealt with.
Press reports indicate that several plates fell down at a china outlet store in Gilroy, and a coffee pot was damaged at the Gilroy Rodeway Inn.
For some reason, phone service in San Jose was affected. Unclear why.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of mild quakes every single day. If the usgs website calms down, go take a look at them all.
What?
I've often said, as an east coaster, that I'd like to feel an earthquake. Well now that I have, I have two reactions.
IOW, I was scared more than was appropriate for the size of this thing. Thank GOD that they make the building able to survive this kind of thing. As I think about it, the fact that an 8 story building was gently rocking back and forth (probably about 1/2 inch in both directions), and didn't fall is pretty amazing.
Want to simulate it? Have someone go up to your wheeled chair and wiggle it back and forth at a rate of about 3-4Hz. Now, imagine that the desk that you're leaning on, and the floor that you have your feet on is also moving.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Hope Slashdot didn't ruin anyones day in CA by posting this, since we east coast people will find out so far before them.
I like music
Gilroy?
Is the garlic okay?
How about the motorcycles?
--Blair
"The only other thing they make there is trouble for politicians wanting to create a freeway to the east..."
I'm in San Francisco and it seemed to me that there was two separate quakes, separated by about 10 seconds.
:)). Then another one a bit longer but about the same magnitude.
The first wasn't that bad, a "trembler" (for a native San Franciscan like me I guess this is up to 5 or so
Having experienced the 1989 quake, I was expecting a huge (main) shock after the second one (two in a row isn't good...). Nothing yet, but perhaps later tonight or even tomorrow we might get something more.
The worst part is after a large quake and you're trying to fall sleep, but now you're senses are heightened, and you can feel every little aftershock. And while you're laying in your bed, you're looking up at the ceiling afraid it's going to fall on you the next minute (you've already calculated how much time you'll have to toss back the sheets and dive to safety). All the while, each movement you make makes you tense; you think it's another aftershock.
I'd rather have earthquakes, though, than tornados, blizzards, or hurricanes.
By the way, if you live in Oakland, Berkeley or Alameda, and you're paranoid... the San Andreas fault isn't predicted to let loose for quite a while. But you're sitting right on the Hayward fault and it's expected to slip "soon" meaning the next 10 - 30 years.
The Intensity Scale is a far better measurement of the actual effects of an earthquake than the richter scale. The richter scale is simply a measurement of wave size, which may or may not have anything to do with damage/loss of life. The Intensity Scale gives factors such as the geography of the area some weight, and helps to determine how a 5.2 can kill 10,000 people in one place and no one somewhere else, even with the same constructed buildings.
If you can come up with a better way to quantify that, let me know.
What?
So, just as daylight savings time supposedly reminds us to change our smoke detector batteries (because otherwise that annoying 'low battery' beeping always start at 4am), tiny earthquakes remind us about our earthquake kits and preparation. Includes...
And unless you live in Scottsdale, AZ, don't feel smug about the safety of your own location- St. Louis has had an 8.0, and New York State has seen 6.0's.
Is the garlic crop okay? I wanna go to the garlic festival this year!
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
Sorry people, I don't think that a local 'weather' report is worthy of a
I'm as about concerned about minor quakes in the US as I sure most
This is not
trellick
See, that's the difference. Loma Prieta wasn't under a major urban area. Northridge was sitting right under some of the most highly developed real estate in So Cal.
In '94, I was 3 miles away from Ground Zero.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I couldn't agree more.
We had a 6.9 here on the 21st of August last year, and people barely felt a thing. A few months before that there was a bigger one (somewhere in the 7's) that's unfortunately rolled off the linked page. Again, not much was felt at all.
There wasn't any notable damage in either of them. This could partly be put down to the very strict local building codes that are there in anticipation of a big Earthquake being due, but that hardly made a difference in these cases.
5.2 doesn't mean anything. There could be a very destructive 5.2 earthquake, or all the other factors could combine to make it almost invisible.
Sorry, dude, but someone from LA is just as qualified as an SF'ian, and probably more qualified than a Nevadan. Or didn't you hear of Long Beach '33, Sylmar '71, Whittier Narrows '87, or Northridge '94?
Fscking Bay Area elitists.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
and we felt it during the game. We lost 2-1 on OT....damn avalanche :(
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
watching the Sharks. At first I thought it was another "we will rock you" chant starting up, but I knew it was something big when the concrete stands began to wobble. I looked up and watched the rafter lights sway for a few seconds while hoping the tremors didn't escalate. No damage or injuries. Regretfully the refs didn't get hurt...those blind jackasses costed the Sharks the game.
Dunno about everyone else, I'd say that was pretty big. Here in Seattle, I felt it in a major way even while driving 60mph (thought I had a flat tire, and when I got out and checked, I thought I was just really dizzy, that is until I heard on the news what happend). There were several buildings/walls that collapsed or were irreparably damaged. Didn't you even here about the damage to the capitol building in Olympia?
:)
So it wasn't huge, but it's one I'll remember for a while... certainly bigger than this whimpy one today
I have this image of blond-haired, blue-eyed, continents goosestepping their way around the globe
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
LA a couple years ago, about 4AM, a long roller, centered around Joshua Tree if I recall correctly.... I had just fallen asleep in the arms of a hottie I had met the night before.... The quake woke us up and kept going, and we wound up huddling naked under the doorway scared but aroused. When the shaking finally stopped, the phone rang.
It was my girlfriend, who called to see if I was OK.
I've never been so fucking busted.
Seems some water flow patterns at the Gilroy Hot Springs may have changed a bit.
This is a beautiful area that many people in the bay area take advantage of, and it is also a very historically significant site.
Following WWII when Japanese-American citizens were released from internment camps many of them spent a good deal of time at Gilroy-Yamato attempting to re-enter society, bit of a overview here
The land was recently sold to the Nature Conservancy (ie. about a month ago), but is still being ran by the seller until the conservancy is ready to take over...
From what i understand they have some serious problems right now tonight, yes no major structures have fallen, and no lives are lost, but this is practically a sacred site to many Japanese-Americans, and a beautifull one in any case to others... would be a shame to see it suffer any ill consequences as are being reported
That doesn't mean we don't have them, just ask anyone living in Newcastle about 12 years ago.
Problem is, because we don't have many earthquakes, the codes aren't as strict, therefore when we DO have them, even a little one can cause damage.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
My, Lord! This is a wake up call. LEAVE already. When the big one hits, it will make 9/11 look like a little bump in the road. It will affect the computer industry drastically and everyone will wail and whine like banshees.
I love southern CA.. it's warm and beautiful! but I would NEVER live there! People.. check this: there are at least FOUR MAJOR faults running through or near the SF bay area. They WILL give way.
Remember how upset everyone was when the bay bridge collapsed? Well.. DUH! You LIVE ON A FAULT!! and they built a major suspension bridge on a fault. Brilliant.
When beaches are infested or contaminated, they put up a sign and a big fence around the place and people DON'T GO THERE.
I just don't get why people aren't leaving in droves. They are living on the edge.. literally. My wife's aunt lives out there and I've asked this same thing and she admits it's foolish to stay, but can't give a rational answer for not leaving. It may cost her her life. Is it worth it?
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
It's funny that you should say that it's romantic for the sun to set over large bodies of water. Here on the east side of Cleveland, the coast takes a northeast bent along lake erie. Therefore, in the evening, the sun sets over the lake for us. What takes the romance out of the sun gently falling into the slow rolling waves of lake erie is the fact that the lake is so polluted with heavy metals. State health advisories are constantly posted asking that the very old, very young, and pregnant should not eat lake erie fish. Our fish have the proud distinction of being riddled with tumors. It's really sad. When you take a boat trip out to the lake erie islands, and look down into the deeper parts of the lake, it looks so clear and beautiful, it's a shame that if you dive in for a swim, it's going to do you more harm than good.
On a more ontopic note, Cleveland had two 5 point earthquakes in my lifetime (the last one happened three years ago I think?) I must admit, neither were much to get excited about. My computer monitor shook like hell, but I just thought it was because the washer was acting up.
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I certainly felt it, too.
I first felt a slow rolling motion, then suddenly a more severe rolling motion. It lasted about 25 seconds or so. If you live on relatively soft land (like I do), you certainly will feel it.
Yet the 5.0 we had in upstate NY last month went unposted on /. We shook for almost 30 seconds.
5.0 is a big deal around here, and anything much stronger will start doing serious damage to our non-quake-ready buildings.
So, after a quake like this, are there changes in human behavior that you can notice?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
3 killed in Joplin over the weekend because of sevear thunderstorms and flash flooding, Washington DC has another tornado...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm probably not the first person to say it, but...
"The epicenter was 4.7 miles below surface."
BUZZ! Wrong! The epicenter is by definition on the surface. The focus is what was 4.7 miles below the surface.
Now then, why is this particular earthquake generating news (just another Californian earthquake), but the one in New York state a few weeks ago didn't?
I submitted this story three weeks ago but it was rejected.
graspee
It doesn't take much to knock down a shoddily constructed village like those you see in Afghanistan. It is a tribute to American preparedness that Loma Prieta (1989) and Northridge (1994) killed about 50 each, while similar size quakes in Japan, India and Turkey the past few years kill 5,000 - 10,000. Still we can do better.
...Joe Simpson and Skip Caray(the Atlanta Braves baseball announcers on TBS) mentioned they felt an earthquake during the SF Giants and Atlanta Braves game last night. Out of nowhere the two started talking about feeling the tremors and joking about the crew in the mobile prodction studio truck.
Why even bother to report a 5.2 in California? I've slept through 5.2's. It's only people from Boston who worry about earthquakes that small. Now a 5.2 in Boston(where all the buildings would probably fall down), that would be news. But a 5.2 in California, yawn. It's not worth getting out of bed for anything beneath a 6.
when you not only refer to the geologists they interview on the news after earthquakes by their first names only, but you have your favorite.
cheers
Actually, I made it up on the spot. I've never heard of "The Din of Celestial Birds", nor "Altman's Tongue".
Big books with big words scare me.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Okay, so when an earthquake happens in California, which is a normal thing to happen, it's posted on the front page, but when an earthquake shakes the northeast (which hasn't happened since 1983) it's not news? What's up with that?
At the beginning, it felt like someone drove a semi into the side of the house. At first, I thought, "What the FSCK???", and then realized it was a quake. My pregnant wife and 2-year old daughter were on the couch with me, watching the end of Dinotopia. I grabbed the kid, stood up, and reached down to assist my wife, all the while things are falling and breaking around me. By the time I reached the archway in that room, the quake had ended, and we had LOTS of broken pictureframes and other things tossed out of cupboards.
My office took the brunt of the quake in our home, with all my DVDs, books, and software flying off the shelves and piling itself in the middle of the room. (A strange earthquake phenonmeon - it looks like a ghost ran through the room and piled all your belongings in a huge heap.) Luckily, my computer rack remained standing, and my Linux box and Sun Ultra 5 were still humming along, with no damage. I wound up sleeping with my amateur radio and a flashlight next to the bed, just in case... And we had several aftershocks throughout the night, the most notable being about a 3.4.
We were lucky, we didn't have any structual damage (that I can see, anyhow, I plan on having a home inspector out within the week). A neighbor down the street had his chimney collapse, the gas station across town had a column on their roof get damaged, and the Wal-Mart's sprinklers went off, dumping a quarter-inch of water on the floor there and damaging lots of merchandise.
Anyone who makes light of earthquakes hasn't been in one that's 5.x or higher. A large quake is a true natural disaster, and something to be feared and prepared for.
chrisd, I'd be interested to find out where your sister's father-in-law lives - there's no way you could have barely noticed this sucker if you were in my house.
I prefer The Onion's headline for the 1906 SF earthquake:
Earth-Quake Marks Least Gay Day In San Francisco History
The last earthquake in the Bay Area that did any noticable damage was in 1989, 13 years ago. How long ago did the last major hurricane trash the Eastern Seaboard? How long since the last tornado tore up houses/trailer parks in the midwest? Less than a year in both cases, I'll betcha.
Actually, earthquakes are nothing -- the real killer in California is floods. Every year, several houses get major flood damage, and it's an unusual year when at least one house isn't destroyed by floods. Earthquakes are just a little harmless fun, normally.
Hey, waitaminute...'termchimp' nick, 'my spoon is too big' sig...you wouldn't happen to be an HP engineer, would you?
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
Okay, it's time for Fun with Basic Math!
Even if you consider someone from LA to be equivalent to someone from SF, at a rough estimate you've got (2*2500+1*0)/3 = 1667 miles on the LA/NJ side and (2*70+1*500)/3 = 213 miles on the Santa Cruz/NV side.
And for the record, I vaguely remember some of the quakes you mentioned, but only because you mentioned them; I'm from Georgia. So your "Bay Area elitist" snub sort of falls flat. Sue me for not being hip to your quake scene.