How Many Earthquakes Have You Lived Through?

[THUNDER HANDS]

Me, just one.

I was about 7 or 8, so this must have been the mid-1980s on Long Island NY.

I think it was a 3 or a 4 scale. Shook me almost out of my bed. It lasted about 10 seconds or so.

No aftershocks or anything.

Wasn't really all that scary either, I remember thinking it was really really cool.

:D

Oh, and I've also lived though just one Hurricane. Gloria, also in the mid-1980s.

No tornadoes. No tsunamis. No blizzards.

The Northeast is so boring, weather-wise.

[auntAgonist]

1. given what's happening elsewhere you should be thankful it's so boring.

I've never experienced anything worse than a snowstorm.

[hollywood926]

2. A million.

Well, several small ones. No big ones, as I have only lived in SoCal for 4 years. The small ones are exciting because no one dies, yet you get to experience a little shake-up. :-)

[zann725]

16. The big one in 1994 in L.A...that brought freeways and buildings down

...and had power out for a day or so. As well as several 'smaller' ones. Though I wouldn't call any of them 'exciting.' I just remember how 'powerless' I felt at nature's whims.

[tuvor]

3. Two mild ones in Vancouver

One in mid-1996 and the other one that did nasty things to Seattle in February 2001.

[truebrit71]

4. 14 years in So.Cal before moving to Chicago...

The Northridge 'quake was the last straw for me...

[ronnykmarshall]

12. Ahhhh ya big baby!

:silly:

[amazona]

5. not sure

Never a big one as I live in the south. I remember two in Tennessee, one I slept through, the other some items fell off the shelf but didn't realize it was an earthquake until we checked the news.

[Sporadicus]

15. Depending on Where You Live in Tennessee

you could be near the epicenter of a CATASTROPHIC earthquake. The New Madrid fault, centered on the southern Missouri city along the Mississippi River of the same name, could cause widespread destruction as far as central Tennessee. This is the same fault line that caused the Mississippi River to run backwards for three days in 1812, creating Reelfoot Lake in your fair state.

There were relatively few residents in the area back then - and no large buildings to sway or topple - but Memphis remains extremely vulernable to a strong quake.

Seismic waves travel extremely far in that region of the country, since the bedrock is typically monolithic sandstone that transmits seismic energy very efficiently. California's saving grace in the earthquake department lies in the jumbled geology underlying the state. Breaks and discontinuities in the bedrock serve to dissipate the seismic energy, keeping earthquakes more localized. The New Madrid fault, on the other hand, would likely give me quite a jolt if it were to give way - and I live about 250 miles away as the crow flies.

[skygazer]

6. No big ones

There was a 5.1 here a while back and there are always little shakers and rollers. I wasn't living in CA for the last big one (Loma Prieta) though I know a lot of people who were here for that one.

I like the way you worded your question - if we hadn't lived through them, it would be hard to answer! :silly:

[supernova]

7. We had one last year

it was about a 3. I was sitting here at my desk and the house just rattled. It felt like the train going by. Except I walked outside and there was no train. I learned later on the evening news it was a quake.

It's the first one I've ever experienced. As long as they're that size it was kinda cool.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. A couple of detectable earthquakes every year or so in Oregon

More often in Japan.

As a native of seismically calm Minnesota, I was freaked by the Tokyo earthquakes at first, but then, one warm spring day, I had the windows open and could hear my landlady talking to a neighbor outside. An earthquake struck, one almost large enough to topple my bookshelves.

After it subsided, I heard my landlady laugh and say, "That was a big one, wasn't it?"

[bluestateguy]

9. 1989: SF Bay Area

A 7.1. Though I was about 80 miles from the epicenter.

[LeftyMom]

41. That's the only one I've ever felt

I was in Sacramento and barely felt it, but a ton of water sloshed out of our pool and the light fixtures swayed. My relatives in San Leandro and Hayward had minor damage, though.

[wryter2000]

10. Several

The only big one was Loma Prieta. There have been so many others, I couldn't guess. But we did have one in our front yard. Literally. It rolled through our house from front to back.

I went to the USGS website and discovered it was only a 2.0, but it was right at our house. A fault runs through our front yard.

[ronnykmarshall]

11. 3

1971 - Silmar Quake: I was living in Bakersfield, but we felt it.

1989 - Loma Preda Quake: I was living right in SF and it was a doozy.

1994 - Northridge Quake: Was visiting my mom in Bakersfield and that sucker woke me up.

[yvr girl]

13. A bunch of earthquakes, but I only felt one

I'm not easily woken up. I felt the one in Seattle a few years ago.

I've also lived through a hurricane, a blizzard (lots of those too), and a volcanic eruption. (Mount St. Helens - close enough to hear it go boom.)

I was also in Bali when the government of Indonesia was overthrown - not a weather story, but it was damn hot there.

[alexisfree]

14. 1985 mexico city

:scared:

[Sporadicus]

17. I Lived for Over a Year in San Diego

so I remember numerous rumblers. I've encountered a couple in Kentucky as well - one a 5.5 that was centered somewhere in southern Illinois.

[Allenberg]

18. Quite a few here in Japan. We get a couple a week. Usually nothing major.

[barackmyworld]

20. one in Japan

while I was on vacation, it was 4.5 or something. No damage.

[cally]

19. Many...I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area

most of my life. I've run to the doorway many times. I don't keep count.

I felt the World Series Quake even though I was in Sacramento. My husband was close to the epicenter on that one. I was at a Pizza Parlor and saw the reports on the news. I grabbed my young children and went home so I could find out if he was OK. As I walked in the door, he called. He couldn't get home for about a day.

The only one that I panicked in was the Northridge quake. I was living in Long Beach and I knew this was bigger than usual. I stuffed both my kids under a coffee table and tried to fit myself under there also. Many dishes fell out of the cupboards. We had a huge mirror above the couch that I worried about. I kept thinking this was the worst location to be in. I was scared.

[Cadence]

21. One earthquake and

several tornados. I was in a car on a rural highway once when six tornados dropped at nearly the same time all around us. There is this interesting denial/adrenalin thing that happens when it's out of the range of the "normal". Part of you is thinking run for your life the other part is thinking wow...look at that..SIX tornados. It almost seemed not real because it was so many.

[CO Liberal]

22. One - in Wharton, NJ

I was home one night and I heard a rumbling sound. I thought there was a problem with the furnace and went down into the basement. Nothing.

Then a news update came on the TV - there had been a minor earthquake, with an epicenter near Lancaster, PA - 150 miles away.

My ex-wife felt it a little more - she was working that night at a nursing home in Dover, NJ, on the fourth floor of a six-story building. She said everything was moving side to side and the patients were freaking out.

[LWolf]

23. Countless.

Living the last 37 years in southern California, we have daily seismic activity that we couldn't possibly keep track of. Even the "small" quakes that we can feel, small jolts or rattles, are too many for me to have kept track of. I can count these bigger quakes, in addition to all of the little shakes:

The San Fernando Quake, 6:00 am February 9, 1971. 6.6 on the Richter scale.

The Whittier quake, 1987, 6.0, and 5.3 a few days later.

The Joshua Tree Quake, 1992, 6.1

The Landers Quake, 1992, 7.3

The Big Bear Quake, 1992, 6.4

The Northridge Quake, 1994, 6.7

There may be more that I'm forgetting.

[charlie]

24. Over a hundred

Probably way more than that, in close to 2 decades living off and on in Japan. A couple dozen typhoons as well (and hurricanes in Virginia and Georgia), the most memorable being Mireille, a monster that raged all night and made a wreckage of my neighborhood in Yamaguchi. And I once saw a twister form and dissipate just as it touched down in west Texas. Guess I'm a magnet for calamity :)

[HawkerHurricane]

25. Two that killed people

1972, Los Angeles.
1994, Los Angeles.

[fluffernutter]

26. a couple, they weren't bad though, thank heavens.

as a kid, i saw a few tornadoes too - those things used to scare the begeezus outta me :scared:

[jonnyblitz]

27. a few minor ones when I lived in CA off and on while in the navy

None of the more famous ones but the ones I did experience were enough to make me thankful I missed the big ones! That swaying back and forth feeling is very strange when it doesn''t register, at first, what is happening.

[IcyPeas]

28. Silly, I've lived through all of them....

none of them have killed me yet......

[Cuban_Liberal]

29. 2 'dish rattlers'

One in Indiana, and one here in IL.

[maveric]

30. Eight small ones here in San Diego.

I tend to sleep through most of them.

[Midlodemocrat]

31. Three

Two in CT and one here in VA. We have had such a rash of weird weather here in VA over the last few years, I would be very grateful for a calm winter.

[Boy Interrupted]

32. none but lived through a tornado destroying the house

I was at my mother's house in Arkansas in 1995. Hit by an F3. I NEVER want to go through that again. :scared: But it was kinda cool in a scary way. It is amazing to see first hand just what nature can do.

[Dzimbowicz]

33. Zilch on earthquakes

But I have experienced several hurricanes. I was forty miles from the eye of Hugo in 1989 when it made landfall.

Occasionally, the news reports that there was an earthquake within the area, but I have never noticed anything.

[warrior1]

34. all of them

since my birth...this is trick question right...I mean even if you don't feel a earthquake don't mean it didn't happened.

[Dzimbowicz]

36. True...

There is a fault line running through the southeast, so they probably did happen. Come to think of it... it was so long ago (I was about seven at the time). I vaguely recall when my sister came running into the den saying that the refrigerator was moving across the floor toward her and that the house did shake. But that was forty years ago....

[GRLMGC]

35. 2 bigger ones

The Northridge quake and another quake in the 80s that I don't remember because I was like 1 or 2. I've experience countless minor ones like most lifelong CA residents.

[Left Is Write]

37. One or two. I'm not sure. I'm in Idaho, and there has been

at least one itty-bitty earthquake I know of since I've been here; there might have been two.

Nothing I actually noticed. I have never been in an earthquake of any consequence.

I have, however, weathered MANY blizzards, MANY severe thunderstorms, one afternoon's worth of tornadoes, and hundreds of tornado warnings and the attendant storms.

[SmokingJacket]

38. A bunch of little ones, and a big one in CA around 1970 or 71

I was a little kid sleeping on a waterbed, and it started sloshing around like crazy. When I looked out the window, I saw palm trees swaying back and forth -- bending way over.

[Eugene]

39. Two small tremors in eastern Mass.

They felt like subway trains
rumbling under the street.

A few bigger quakes in New York and Canada
were felt in Boston, but I didn't notice them.

[Catchawave]

40. 2 small earthquakes (5's), a tornado....

blizzard of *shut down the naval base for a week* proportions and numerous hurricanes.

Was evacuated from a California beach campground for a tsunami warning once, but it never hit. Same for an avalanche. Whew.

Probably my worst experience was an ice storm that crippled the planes and trains in the mid-atlantic, and ended up spending 22 hours travelling on a bus!

[Solly Mack]

42. None

I'm a ghost


Never experienced one of any import

[Pepperbelly]

43. one big one in Taipai in '77 or '78 and a bunch of small ones. nt