Earthquake

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Senior Member
A magnitude 5.0 earthquake occurred 60 km north of Ottawa (approx. 250 km northwest of my home in Montreal). Quite an event for these parts (last one was in 1998). Here's how I experienced it.

I had just closed the garage door and was on the second floor of my home when I heard a long, loud, rumbling noise. It sounded like a large part of the front of my house was relocating itself. Was the roof over the front porch collapsing? Ridiculous; the garage door must have malfunctioned in a big way. I rushed downstairs, peaked into the garage and all was well. Back in the house I heard an odd noise in the dining room. Upon closer inspection I felt the hutch was trembling. What the heck is causing this? A few seconds later, my brother-in-law phoned to ask me "Did you feel the earthquake?". Ahah!

Although I haven't made an exhaustive examination of my property, it appears my home was unscathed by the incident. People living closer to the epicenter reported broken windows and other tangible souvenirs of the quake.

USGS Report
 
I felt an earth quake in Ohio 1980-82... I don't remember the exact date. The little older home I owned back then seemed to be rolling... like a wave. The windows rattled (no breakage) and a hutch door opened.
 
I'm in Gatineau and I felt it pretty good. The magnitude was reported to be 5.5 on the Richter scale. The last one that I remember with almost same magnitude was around 1982, I was in New-Brunswick then.
 
PA? Wow, you got me beat. My wife said she felt it in our house (Rochester, NY)...but I didn't feel a thing at work.

--Dan
 
Yup felt it in Ottawa. I was only 4 stories up and it felt like a subway train was running right under my floor. Low rumble, BIG rumble, lots of low rumbles. Can't say I would like to live in California where this happens much more often and when they get 6.0-6.5 which is 10x worse than this one....Ow!!!

At home the only damage was the monitor fell off its stand.

Odd thing was how slow news sites updated about the quake. Took them 20-30 minutes to have their web sites updated. Twitter was alight in about 10 seconds after the quake with reports from all over.
 
I felt an earth quake in Ohio 1980-82... I don't remember the exact date. The little older home I owned back then seemed to be rolling... like a wave. The windows rattled (no breakage) and a hutch door opened.
I remember that one! I was in the southern suburbs of Chicago at the time.
 
Despite living in Silicon Valley, I've only ever really felt a couple small ones so far, and that's probably a good thing I guess. The first one was a classic. They generally come in two phases, the P wave and then the S wave. The P wave is a fast, higher frequency deal and travels quickly, so it'll arrive somewhat ahead of the S wave, which is what most folks probably would consider the actual earthquake, and I guess what does the real damage. Given the difference in speed of propogation, I guess you could estimate the distance by the difference, I dunno.

Anyway, I'd already studied up on that stuff, so when I felt this quick shudder I kind of felt like I should know what that is. And just about the time my brain got wrapped around it and thought, that was like the P wave of an earth quake, the S wave hit and I felt a couple undulations. If had been a big one it wouldn't have been time for me to do anything intelligent like get outside. Something about the ground moving, the brain just doesn't compute that very well. So it takes a little bit to get into your head what's going on.
 
I'd be willing to guess I only live about 80-100 miles from Dean (in Northern California), and I've never felt an earthquake in my life... I'm actually morbidly curious to experience one...

Glad nobody was hurt - that's what's most important.
 
I'd be willing to guess I only live about 80-100 miles from Dean (in Northern California), and I've never felt an earthquake in my life... I'm actually morbidly curious to experience one...

Glad nobody was hurt - that's what's most important.

Don't worry, you will get to feel one someday if you stay in California.
We had another small 5.4 quake down here in So. Cal. yesterday. They don't bother me unless they are big enough that people are losing their life or property. My house has survived several 6+ earthquakes and one 7.3 and so far the only damage I have is lots of cracks in the stucco.
 
I lived in Sacramento in 1989 when the big quake hit the Bay area. We felt it. The guitars on the wall of the music store I worked in were swaying about a foot back and forth. And we were 90 miles away. Truly an experience.

I'd be willing to guess I only live about 80-100 miles from Dean (in Northern California), and I've never felt an earthquake in my life... I'm actually morbidly curious to experience one...

Glad nobody was hurt - that's what's most important.
 
I have a friend that I worked with in Chicago who was doing some work in San Francisco in the late 1990's. He was from Chicago. He had a rental car one day of an Earthquake there. He drove the very same day of the Earthquake back to Chicago never to return to San Francisco.
 
I was in LA around 15 years ago and wifes family had a whole fancy studio tour and backlot deal scheduled. The night before there was an earthquake that cracked some overpass and stuff near the studio and everything was shut down. We missed the whole private tour. But it was interesting seeing sliding glass closet doors moving (actually opened and closed) by themselves, a gumby clock on the wall turned upside down, book falling off shelves and what did I do - yup - I looked out the large glass window to see what was going on! I'll keep my hurricanes over earthquakes any day.
 
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