Earthquakes can be fun

[David Nebenzahl]

Interesting: sitting here in front of my computah a little while ago, felt an earthquake go by. I say "go by" because that's exactly what it felt like: as if something started out in the west and traveled straight through the building under me, shaking everything at its crest and making everything creak and groan.

The fun part was going to the USGS earthquake reporting site for the Bay Area

a few minutes later and giving my perception of the event. If you click on an earthquake (the one I reported will be a red square if you read this message soon after I post it), you get a page of information, including a link reading "Did you feel it"?, you can see the summary of responses by zipcode, giving an average for the perceived magnitude (the Modified Mercalli Intensity) for the quake.

They don't use this in computing the actual magnitude, of course, but it's interesting to see how people judge an earthquake at different distances from the epicenter. (Also an interesting graph, "Distance vs. intensity plot" under the "Graphs" tab.)

Oh, but I guess this is just more useless guvmint crap that we should do away with so we can pay less taxes. Who needs it?

[Joe]

Gonna wear your seat belt from now on, aren't you?

Joe

[Zz Yzx]

Yeah. When I was in high school (Sun Valley), I went through the Sylmar quake. I was in bed, and awakened by the jolt and then the roll. I jumped out of bed, and remember vivedly feeling the waves in the floor of our wood-frame house. I swear the amplitude was 6-8 inches.

-Zz

[1D10T]

I was visiting my son in Burbank during the Sylmar quake, and I'll never forget seeing the water roll out each end of the swimming pool.