Hey CA SGTers! What's Shakin'?

[turkeyham]

Seriously, I thought there was a large plane taking off from Los Alamitos Reserve Base. It was a loud rumbling sound and then I heard allot of cracking of wood. I live in a condo complex that was build in the 60's. It had been retrofitted 20 years ago and it has held up to some large earthquakes. It's scarry when I live on the bottom floor.

Remember: Aim for the hallway and be under something strong. If you walk under the doorway that has no doors, that is the strongest built area.
I would hide under the desk, but it is near my sliding door and that would be dangerous. :(

[Big Wallaby]

The way you describe this, it sounds like a sonic boom when the Shuttle goes over.

Never ceases to amaze me how the Richter Scale system works. You won't really feel anything under a 4 unless you're in exactly the right place at the right time. You might miss a six if it's short enough, and a 7 can do significant damage to your house.

Anyone (felinefan) know why the scale is set up as it is?

[hobie16]

Anyone (felinefan) know why the scale is set up as it is?

It's a base-10 logarithmic scale.

[felinefan]

Hobie's right. For every tenth of a point, the force of the quake is ten times stronger, i.e. a 5.0 quake is 30 times stronger than a 4.7. For every point the force is 100 times stronger, i.e., a 6.0 is 100 times stronger than a 5.0 . Strongest quake in the world was a 9.5 off the coast of Peru, May 22, 1960. It caused the earth to ring like a bell--shockwaves were recorded worldwide.

The strongest in the U.S. was a 9.2 on Good Friday, March 28, 1964, in Prince William Sound, Alaska. There were more fatalities from tsunamis than from the shaking.

I think the strongest in California so far was the 1857 Fort Tejon quake; I believe it was an 8.75. There was only one fatality when a woman was killed in the collapse of an adobe building. Not a whole lot of damage, either, because of the relatively low population of California at that time.

Though I once read somewhere that Dr. Charles Richter came up with the point scale to answer the questions from reporters when they kept asking him how strong the latest quake was.

[Big Wallaby]

I knew about it being 5.0 a hundred times stronger than a 4.0, but it seems that that leaves a lot of variance available... or accuracy lost.

[felinefan]

The site explains it better than I can.

[Soundwave]

That was pretty crazy, I had just got off work too. Kinda glad I wasn't there.