Woah!

[hils]

Last night we were hit by an earthquake

It wasn't a huge one but it was enough to wake me up and it made my Superman Returns figure fall off the shelf

Uh...we do NOT get earthquakes here! It was bloody scary!

Comments

[liars-dance.livejournal.com]

we slept through it all - I sleep like the dead; if the dogs felt it, they didn't let on by waking us up!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hehe! I was annoyed because I stayed up late RPing with one of my friends and I had JUST fallen asleep when it happened.

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

I felt it! It was just enough down here to make my bathroom cabinet shake. I thought there was something wrong with the boiler behind it.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when I first woke up I just thought it was the guy in the flat above me being noisy. It was only when stuff fell off my shelf that I realised something was wrong. LOL!

[chickadilly.livejournal.com]

Hey I'm from California and a 5.3 would rattle me a bit. Yeah, it's nothing major but it's big enough to wake you up and startle you!

[hils.livejournal.com]

I seriously don't know how you guys cope with it more frequently

[gillo]

There was an earthquake in Folkestone last year. Are the British Isles becoming geologically active? Is a Rift developing here?

We went to bed about the time it struck - completely unaware of it. Mind you, I slept through the Dudley earthquake too, and that's a lot closer.

Someone in Barnsley had to go to hospital. These things do not happen in our country!

[hils.livejournal.com]

I blame it on the Cardiff Rift. Where is Captain Jack when you need him?

Of course you know what an earthquake signifies in the Buffy universe *looks around nervously*

[gillo]

I refuse to believe in a hellmouth under Market Rasen. Goole, now...

Perhaps Captain John might come through this Rift? OK, I can dream...

[hils.livejournal.com]

Mmm...I shall dream with you *g*

[ryo-girl.livejournal.com]

There's people all over my flist going "I had no idea it was an earthquake, I thought it was something else!"

I used to live in California, right on that fault line. We had a quake so bad it cracked the street outside my house. Woke everyone up at like 2 AM.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Now THAT is scary!

[eleclya-m.livejournal.com]

I was just dropping off to sleep when it happened, so was only kinda half-aware. Really freaked me out

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was half asleep too and had no idea what was going on

[ghosts.livejournal.com]

((HUGS)) i live right on the edge of the escarpment, so im used to earthquakes/tremors. but shit, if yer not used to them.. yea it's fucking freaky as hell.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yup, I've never experienced one before. It wasn't bad enough that I got out of bed though ;)

[ghosts.livejournal.com]

really? i read they occur every 10-20 years out there? we haven't had one in about.. shite, i'd like to say five years? still though, man. if that had been me, i would've been safely waiting in the door frame, then running outside seeing what in the freakin' hell happened!


((puts you in a protective bubble, just in case)) NO EARTHQUAKES WILL DAMAGE THE MERCHANDISEHILS KTHX.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Well, the news article says the last one happened 25 years ago and I was living in Germany then so this was my first time

It wasn't that bad really. Nothing broke and it didn't even occur to be to stand under a door frame. I was comfy in bed! LOL!

[ghosts.livejournal.com]

lmao! they used to drill us in elementary school; you run for a doorframe and sorta.. stand in it, hands against the frame to sort of "lock" yerself in there XD apparently it's far safer than trying to hide under a table or what have you. i suppose, running outside could be sorta safe, if powerlines and such aren't falling!

[hils.livejournal.com]

I've never had to do an earthquake drill ever. LOL!

[ghosts.livejournal.com]

hahah. well. suppose they're better than the tornado ones haha.


hey, did you ever think that you know... captain jack might.. no i shouldn't put ideas into yer fangirlish mind ;p

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hehe! It doesn't take much to put ideas in my head ;)

[moxie-fic.livejournal.com]

We felt it in Manchester. The most tremendous banging and the whole house shuddered. Scared the crap out of me as I was just looking out of the window thinking it was rather windy. I'm still feeling rattled..LOL.. I now have a lot of empathy for those hit by serious quakes.

[hils.livejournal.com]

God yes! I don't know how people cope with that (and much worse) sort of thing on a regular basis.

[danceswithgary]

Earthquakes are very scary. It's one of the reasons I won't move to California, even though a lot of Gary's family lives there. I was working in Los Angeles on an install of a computer system when a huge one hit with aftershocks for days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northridge_earthquake

I remember driving by the place where the overpass fell everyday and shuddering. It was a long four weeks before the job was done and I could go home, especially when aftershocks would shake me awake every night.

My favorite part?

"Don't worry, the buildings are constructed so that they don't tip over, they pancake instead, collapse downwards."

"But, I'm on the second story of a fifteen-story hotel!"

[hils.livejournal.com]

I seriously don't understand how people can cope living somewhere that has them all the time. I mean we don't get them at all here. The last one was 25 years ago and even last nights was pretty minor. I'd be a nervous wreck living somewhere that had them all the time

[touchstoneaf.livejournal.com]

you ever see "Independence Day"? that bit where Vivica Fox just turns over in bed and says, 'Not even a four-pointer. Go back to bed." I went to college in California, and that is totally the mindset there. They are SO used to earthquakes that unless it's a six or above they don't even comment on it around the water-cooler at work. i guess everyone gets used to their own kind of natural disaster here in the US. I didn't realize it was still such wild country till i lived in Europe. Tornadoes, annual wildfires and hurricanes, avalanches, mudslides, blizzards, earthquakes... people just take them in stride. But i know what you mean. In Idaho where i grew up we're on basement rock, so we seldom feel them; but the one that was in northern Nevada a few days ago was felt into Idaho, and people up there are just not used to it. And since the stone they're on there is mostly crumbly granite, i often fear half the mountainside will just shear off and slide down into a ravine, taking houses with it; because they just don't BUILD for earthquakes outside of the 'zone' in Cali.

Thankfully our family ranch is not on a ravine; but so many are, because the builders are stupid and the buyers naive and accept it as safe when the realtors tell them, "Don't worry; nothing bad will come of building your house on California-style stilts here!" They should watch the news when the California stilt-houses in Malibu slide off into the sea periodically during these events. Especially after the fires they get every year there burn off all the undergrowth whose roots supposedly hold the hillside together (which happens as well in Idaho, with the annual wildfires like clockwork decimating the forests, and yet every year they act all shocked and disgruntled that the fires threaten their houses--that they built IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS. Not to mention the annual runoff mudslides that cut off the roads they built IN RIVER CANYONS).

Why people keep rebuilding in these places is just BEYOND me. Like rebuilding in Florida after the annual hurricanes. WHY?!

I dunno how it is elsewhere, but in the US, realtors will flat out lie to people. "Sure, you can build your house with a basement here in this flat field right next to the riverbank! It's riverfront property; it's worth LOADS of money! Highly in demand! Grab it now before someone else does! You can commute to Boise in an hour for work!" (Flat out FALSEHOOD! This is true only in the summer--which lasts two months out of an 8-month long winter full of 6 feet of snow and ice--and only if you drive 70 miles per hour.) "Why is it so wonderfully flat for building, already?" "Err... So, how about those Mets?!"

Because, of course, the thing is flat because it is a FLOODPLAIN for the river. We get no end of laughs when we watch these people slogging out of their houses into a two-foot deep pond every spring when the snow melts, and have to pump water out of their basements with rented machinery cuz the sandbags would never work to keep it all out. Not because we like laughing at others' misfortunes, but because we told them NOT to buy/build there, and exactly why; and they didn't listen to the people that lived there twenty years, but to the realtors. They deserve their fate.

I have digressed way too much here, but yeah. LOL, come visit sometime!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hee!!! I love long, windy comments like this

I will NEVER understand why people still live in Florida after all the hurricanes.

[touchstoneaf.livejournal.com]

my grandfather lived within 15 miles of Northridge when that happened. we called them constantly and couldn't get thru to see if they were okay for DAYS. freakout!!! i used to live there for short periods as a kid, and its full of boulder-pile things they call hills... i was so terrified those boulders would roll down and crush the house.

Wiki "Stoney Point" and you'll see what i mean. former undersea sandstone CENTRAL!

[touchstoneaf.livejournal.com]

if they felt it in Newcastle, i'm sure they felt it in southern Scotland, but interestingly enough, that's not mentioned in the article. hm. not sure what that says.

no damage to the domicile, i hope?

Well, i'm off to phone friends in Edinburgh/Glasgow, just in case, though it's doubtful they felt much that far up.

thanks for the news titbit!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Nothing damaged except my sleep. LOL! The last thing I expected was to be woken up at 1am by an earthquake

[drusplace.livejournal.com]

In my memory we've had one earthquake here (just outside of Toronto, Canada) and it was really minor where I live. I recall the coffee cups swinging a bit. Hope you and yours are all ok and that there isn't too much damage over there!

[hils.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem that bad, not in my city anyway. No damage that I've seen just a lot of people freaked out because this never happens

[talesofmicetea.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel:/ When I was in the hospital about two years back, there was one off the coast of Florida. I told my nurse to stop the table from moving and he didn't believe me but when the Doctor came in she asked if I felt it. It was like 250 miles off shore but still it made the charts fall off the shelfs and the beds and tables shake. I heard on tv where they said we all get earth quakes all the time but there so mild we don't feel them. I'm all for not feeling them!
micetea

[hils.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I'd definitely rather not feel it. It was scary!

[lexalicious70.livejournal.com]

I got so scared for you when I heard! Are you and Jaqui ok??

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we're fine. No damage to anything. Supes took a nosedive off my shelf but he's fine. We were just a bit shocked because we NEVER get earthquakes here and this one came out of nowhere.

[cordykitten]

I just read an american post mentioning that.
Didn't hear it on TV, must have missed it. Glad to hear you're okay.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

[dusty273.livejournal.com]

5.2, a strong one. We're sort of used to having quakes, courtesy of living in a country plagued by volcanoes and tectonic plaques, but they don't get less scary even then. I'm glad you're okay.

[hils.livejournal.com]

It was just a shock really. The last one we had was 25 years ago!

[hobbituk.livejournal.com]

The earth didn't move for me... I slept right through the whole thing. If it was felt here in London, that is.

[hils.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the range was but it seems to be mostly the north and the midlands

[rosebud81.livejournal.com]

I definitely felt it here in London! Just a little. I was sitting at my computer like always when I felt my desk shake under my hands and then I noticed my chair was shaking. Scared the hell out of me. It passed really quickly though and then after that I wondered if I imagined it. Completely forgot about it afterwards until I noticed you joined the facebook group about surviving the earthquake! lol!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was half asleep and the next morning I wasn't sure if I dreamed it. LOL!