ROCK AND ROLL IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

At 11:42 AM Tues morning (July 29, 2008) the house really rocked with what felt like 2 jolts, a first good one immediately followed by an even bigger one (the news reported it as just one so I guess I interpreted the rocking and rolling as 2 separate quakes) and one smaller one 10 minutes later. Epicenter up by Diamond Bar and east of Yorba Linda, about 15 miles from our house. My neighbor had hard-scape workers in Brea who said they almost got knocked off their feet. Anaheim Hills had some slight damage with stuff falling off of shelves. Chino had more. (5.4 magnitude and 3.8 after-shock) There were 30 or more in the 3. range in the next couple of hours, but I never felt any of those. As a general rule, when the aftershocks become littler and littler, things are dying down, and you don't have to worry about the first one being a pre-cursor to "the big one" that we have been assured is coming.

Many people on the news were saying they were scared the first one was just the beginning so they were really looking for a safer place. When the reporters quizzed people where they thought that safer place might be, many said "outside" (the very worst place because of debris falling off of buildings and electric wires, etc) or under a door jam. (The safest place is under your biggest, heaviest table or desk so if stuff comes down, you are sheltered. In the quake in '87, I was sleeping in Chris' bottom bunk bed because I had been painting our bedroom while Bill was gone, and it was the very best place in the world to be because that bunk is the strongest piece of furniture ever made and really comfortable if you have to wait for rescuers.) Maybe there should be a new law for earthquake land- sleep in a bottom bunk.

Tues I was sitting at my computer in the family room and Kahlua's picture fell off the shelf by the tv, but it landed on nice soft rugs, etc. so didn't break. We haven't spotted any other damage, but this house really moved. There have got to be more cracks in the ceilings and walls than we had before. I have been in bigger quakes, but evidently we were a whole lot closer to this one so it was the most quake I had ever felt. (The news reported that many other people who had been through the Whittier quake in '87 too said this one was the biggest they had ever experienced too even though it wasn't.)

I wasn't afraid even though I knew what was happening immediately as I am a weirdo who loves earthquakes. (Of course, I haven't been killed by one yet.) The most fun was the one in '52 when I was in a twin bed positioned next to a window with a venetian blind just above my tummy. The house and venetian blind and I rolled and rolled with a sensation just like riding a horse. It was great.

Chris, our son, uses the metrolink to get from our house to his work in El Segundo and it was shut down for a while, but it was open for him to get home, but the trains were just moving slowly as they searched for any damage to the tracks. (He drives to the Santa Ana train station to take a train to Norwalk, a shuttle to the metrolink, metrolink to close to LAX.)