There has been an alarming number of earthquakes in the Livermore area for the past couple of days. I have felt 4 of them, 3 of them within 2 hours of each other last night! (The first, a 3.2, I felt Monday night.) The first of the three last night woke me up, so I didn't really experience its full force (although the fact that it woke me up tells me it was pretty strong. It was the strongest we've had, a 3.5) There was another one a bit after that one, at which point Gary made me get out of bed, put clothes on, and drive around outside for a bit. I couldn't sleep anyway, so it was nice to be out of the house for a bit. Of course after we got home and I was back in bed we felt another one, but it was minor compared to the first 2 of the evening.
I don't mind a minor earthquake now and then, but a series of them is a little unsettling. The cats were pretty unhappy about it too; everytime one hit they bolted around the house (so Gary couldn't tell sometimes if things had been knocked over by the quake or by the cats!) I did not sleep well last night, waking up everytime Gary rolled over or a cat jumped on the bed. When I woke up I was certain there had been many more quakes during the night, but apparently there were just a few, all too small for me to notice I think.
The best place to check on recent earthquakes is the USGS website. Call me paranoid, but I check it out almost every day, right after the news and weather. And when there's been one recently, I check it several times a day!
So what does all this earthquake activity mean? Well, these could be pre-shocks before a larger quake (which would be bad) or they could be small slippages in the fault line (which would be better.) Being the paranoid home-owners that we are, we're going with the first theory, but it's probably just some minor geological adjustment we needn't worry about.
For certain, though, it does mean that if we ever get a larger quake (say, something greater than a 5) we will not be able to ignore it. The Bay Area is divided into liquefaction zones, rated from 1 to 10 with 10 having the greatest liquefaction potential. Our house is in zone 10. Gary's dad's house, in Napa, is also in a high liquefaction zone (9 or 10) and we were banged around pretty badly in the Labor Day earthquake a few years ago.
So, like good Californians, we have a reasonable supply of food and water stashed away in various closets in the house. We used to have flashlights all over the place, but they seem to have migrated away (that's on the to-do list this weekend.) I suppose we're as ready for the Big One as we possibly can be.
Posted by Jen at January 21, 2004 08:11 AM