Earthquake strikes Virginia

[Shift2Fan]

I live in a small town in Western New York, about an hour away from Buffalo.

I was at a friend's place when it happened, the whole building started wobbling and squeaking. I went outside after it died down, just about everyone else was standing around and talking about it too.

Today just happens to be my 20th birthday, so I suppose I'll have something to remember it by.

 

[CodeRedR51]

What happened to the Colorado part of the thread?

I live about 250 miles from that quake, called a few friends that live close enough to feel it and/or know about damage etc.

It was not bad with some debris on the highway, fallen porches(If you've ever been in that area porches can fall from snow or just old age really), damaged chimneys etc. No news of injury or death that I know of.

Hasn't really been a Colorado section other than the post from MrMulsanne on the first page.

 

[Pupik]

Merged threads, renamed (yes Virginia, you are a state).

Was in my car in Winston-Salem, didn't feel anything. Co-workers in Charlottesburg got a scare, though...we don't do earthquakes in the South.

Great, now we are going to have fifty million tourists doing stupid "holding the leaning monument up" pics.

...In before the Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine:

Obama wanted the earthquake to be a 3.6 and the Republicans wanted it to be 3.4, so they compromised and we got a 5.9.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Merged threads, renamed (yes Virginia, you are a state).

I think he had it originally titled America or something similar since there are several states reporting movement, including Colorado.

 

[Prosthetic]

 

[Villain]

NOOBS[IMG][/QUOTE]

:cheers:

 

[CodeRedR51]

Maybe we should exclude Californians from this thread.

 

[Pupik]

How would Californians deal with a Category 1 hurricane? They'd run to Nevada.

 

[Caz]

Or the ridiculous amounts of snow we get in NewEngland.

 

[Akira AC]

That's just brilliant.

I guess that the shock of not-experiencing an earthquake before has a strong impact on people who hasn't experienced yet, and of course the paranoia of imagining everything falling into pieces.

However you still have to be aware of windows falling(not the blue screen of death of course).

 

[Prosthetic]

How would Californians deal with a Category 1 hurricane? They'd run to Nevada.

Category one? Eh, they'd probably do the same thing they always do. Look out the windows with a doobie at hand and say "**** man, its hella wack outside. Lets go play xbox." "righteous bro"

Or the ridiculous amounts of snow we get in NewEngland.

Or the parts of California that probably gets double the snow New England gets. We get everything in Cali, extreme cold and extreme heat. Or on the coast its the extreme medium that bores the **** out of you.

 

[Villain]

Ahhh you beat me to it! We also don't develop below sea level like folks seem to enjoy doing on the gulf coast. Storms like that would hit us differently. We also have a lot of cliffs and hills closer to (if not on) the shore which can slow weather systems significantly.

Worth mentioning is plenty of flash flood experience and wind (though not exactly hurricane-force).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_winds

I think we're more prepared than you might expect.

 

[Prosthetic]

AHhh you beat me to it! We also don't develop below sea level like folks seem to enjoy doing on the gulf coast. Storms like that would hit us differently. We also have a lot of cliffs and hills closer to (if not on) the shore which can slow weather systems significantly.

We also have plenty of flash flood experience and we are used to wind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_winds

I think we're more prepared than you might expect.

Yeah we get 50-60 MPH gusts all the time here in the winter. Out intire coast line is a wall pretty much so storms aren't very effective.

 

[Speedy Samurai]

A 5.9 you say? We call those aftershocks.

 

[Pupik]

That's true...between the mudslides, fires, earthquakes, lack of water, crumbling infrastructure, and being bankrupt for the past 30 years hasn't really stopped your state from being really darn cool.

 

[Villain]

That's true...between the mudslides, fires, earthquakes, lack of water, crumbling infrastructure, and being bankrupt for the past 30 years hasn't really stopped your state from being really darn cool.

That's the spirit!

 

[niky]

A 5.9 you say? We call those aftershocks.

We call those aftershocks. You guys ought to call them after-after-aftershocks. I don't even get out of bed for a 5.9.

 

[Omnis]

A 5.9 you say? We call those aftershocks.

We call those aftershocks. You guys ought to call them after-after-aftershocks. I don't even get out of bed for a 5.9.

You guys make this whole Richter scale thing seem mighty convenient. What else can we measure with it?

"Honey, the baby is crying."
"How hard is he crying?"
"Oh, a 5.9"
"Go back to bed."

 

[bigcanada813]

Well, that whole quake was mighty unpleasant. I'm about an hour and a half (in good traffic) from where the epicenter was, and at my place we do have cracks in the concrete pool deck from this little adventure.

And there was some damage in DC, most notably one of the spires on the National Cathedral was toppled, and the whole building has been closed due to cracks in the structure.

 

[Speedy Samurai]

You guys make this whole Richter scale thing seem mighty convenient. What else can we measure with it?

Japan uses a system known as Shindo (震&#24230. It only goes up to 7. That said, the big earthquake we had back in March actually exceeded the Japanese earthquake measuring devices.

 

[Villain]

March actually exceeded the Japanese earthquake measuring devices.

Holy shindo!

 

[a6m5]

Japan uses a system known as Shindo (震&#24230. It only goes up to 7. That said, the big earthquake we had back in March actually exceeded the Japanese earthquake measuring devices.

I didn't know it maxed out at 7. But yeah, I'm sure 5.9 is pretty much business as usual in Japan these days. When I lived in Yokohama back when, 5.9 might have been noteworthy, especially between friends or something, but definitely not the end of the world.

P.S. 👍 at Omnis & Prosthetic. But I don't know about Californians being great drivers in weather. I've seen plenty drive in the rain, except they drove like I do on ice. Maybe our rain hits the ground harder.

 

[bergauk]

I didn't know it maxed out at 7. But yeah, I'm sure 5.9 is pretty much business as usual in Japan these days. When I lived in Yokohama back when, 5.9 might have been noteworthy, especially between friends or something, but definitely not the end of the world.

P.S. 👍 at Omnis & Prosthetic. But I don't know about Californians being great drivers in weather. I've seen plenty drive in the rain, except they drove like I do on ice. Maybe our rain hits the ground harder.

People in California lose their minds when it rains. They cut their speed in half for some odd reason..

 

[dongiovanni]

I'm sure that a 5.8 earthquake may seem tiny or of little consequence to those that live in California, Japan, etc , but you need to keep in mind that earthquakes are expected around the pacific rim. Your building codes are written with earthquakes in mind. The eastern United States, with the exception of the New Madrid zone, very rarely has earthquakes of any significance. Because buildings are not constructed to the same earthquake standards that are on the west coast, a lower magnitude earthquake can cause much more damage.

 

[CodeRedR51]

People in California lose their minds when it rains. They cut their speed in half for some odd reason..

Ditto here in Arizona. Last summer we had a pretty violent storm come through one day and dump rain for about 5-10 minutes. Caused a 60 car pile up on one of the freeways.

I'm sure that a 5.8 earthquake may seem tiny or of little consequence to those that live in California, Japan, etc , but you need to keep in mind that earthquakes are expected around the pacific rim. Your building codes are written with earthquakes in mind. The eastern United States, with the exception of the New Madrid zone, very rarely has earthquakes of any significance. Because buildings are not constructed to the same earthquake standards that are on the west coast, a lower magnitude earthquake can cause much more damage.

Finally a voice of reason...

 

[niky]

Uhurm... Owen Wilson voice:

Building codes?

You have building codes?!?

Wow... man... just... wow...

Seriously, though... 5.9 is big, but it's not going to cause that much damage to a modern building. Older buildings might become structurally unsound, but they shouldn't (and apparently didn't) fall down from that.

I've been through a few big ones, though during the really big one that brought the Hyatt down a few hundred k's north of here, I was on the road. And that only brought that hotel down because it was a substandard structure.

And this is in a country where buildings sometimes just... fall over... due to their general crappiness:



*shudder* and to think I used to live in that neighborhood when we moved from New Yawk...

 

[Moglet]

 

[Prosthetic]

But I don't know about Californians being great drivers in weather. I've seen plenty drive in the rain, except they drove like I do on ice. Maybe our rain hits the ground harder.

Its not the rain, its just them being dumb. But you find that everywhere.

People in California lose their minds when it rains. They cut their speed in half for some odd reason..

Just the slow dumb drivers. Most people here have more money then brains and drive like complete idiots. But that seems to be the case everywhere in the world not just here.

 

[Moglet]

Over here when it rains we get quite a few people who slow down to reasonable speeds just to be safe, but 99% of the population don't adapt their driving at all and carry on as if it were dry.

They usually drive Audis.

 

[BobK]

I understand this was originally a 5.9 but Standard & Poor's downgraded it this morning to a 4.3.