Earthquake

We just had one..... in friggin Philadelphia.  First time I ever encountered one.....  Little freaky - it was mild, I thought I was having veritgo at first, but then looked up and my entire cubicle was shaking.  Thought somebody was messing with me, but then looked up and saw the entire office standing around in shock.

I know this might not be a big deal to some of you folks out west..... but nothing around these parts could withstand an sort of significant quake.... stuff just wasn't designed for it.......so little scary.

wierdly, I'm down in Dallas, and just felt queasy... but just put it down to the sushi for lunch.

it was centered in VA, kind of unusual to be felt as far away as reported.

I didn't feel it here.

I was only in one small shake while out in LA... (no not lower alabama).

people are evacuating buildings several state away.. this seems like a bit of an over reaction, I hope.

But it is late august.. any reason is a good reason to go home.

JR

JohnRoberts said:

it was centered in VA, kind of unusual to be felt as far away as reported.

JR

Click to expand...

Yea, I just saw that it was centered there.  It is wierd because the walls were litterally shaking here.  Cell phone service is out for everyone now......

Maybe the invasion is here   Ohh wait, that always starts in LA.

I'm in PA about 40 minutes north of Ruckus. I'm in the bottom floor of a 3 story building. My office area literally gyrated! We all ran outside. I immediately got on the ISIS site on my iphone and I saw a big red dot over Virginia. A bridge in Reading, a little west of here got damaged.

I don't think our buildings out here would survive a quake either.

I work in Bensalem (Philly area).  Felt it pretty strong here.  We were seconds away from starting one of our reactions when it hit.  We had some chemicals splash out of open drums sitting on our concrete floor.

some news reports say a 5.9 others a 6.1 so round it out to a 6.0 which is pretty strong. How long did it last? Yes it's not us folks out west but still they are rough to be in.  My worst so far was to be right at the epicenter of a 4.0. Although  it is a lot less in magnatude then others I have experienced, I still say my worst as I was at ground zero. It's a stronger presence then say being felt from 100 miles or so away.  Last one out here was a 7.6 IIRC and happened 200+ miles south west. The tech shop on the second floor wobbled.  enough to notice not enough to have damage. Guys I wouldn't worry too much but do be cautious especially with all the other people who will panic.

The bedrock up the east coast is quite a bit different that the LA basin.  6.0 is not a monster but large for east coast.

It's remarkable to realize that we're sitting on the thin candy shell of a mostly molten ball of melted rock.  makes it a little easier to believe the poles could swap next year..

or not..  but If they're acting like they are today over this, just wait till the big one.  8) it'll be epic and in true 3D.  ;D

JR

I feel ripped off...

I was outside of Richmond, about 30 miles from the epicenter, when it happened.

I was on the highway, I didn't feel a thing.

As soon as we stopped the car at a 7-11, my phone started ringing, first my wife, then some of my friends down in Hampton Roads area asking "Did you feel that?". Then my mom called from Pittsburgh area, said she felt it there, too.

I was much closer than anyone I talked to and got nothing out of it except for a pissed off rant. I guess things could be worse.

> I'm in PA ...I don't think our buildings out here would survive a quake either.

Might. Depends.

I'm in Maine and planning a building.

We have 1 and 2 scale quakes every few years, nobody notices. In the last 100 years, earthquakes in Maine have caused one chimney collapse and one rock-fall in the park. The park is all rocks piled up, they sometimes fall for no reason. Old-time chimneys were sometimes dodgy from the start.

So I am not required to consider seismic stresses.

I am of course required to brace for wind. Design-max wind on my neck of land is 5%-10% higher than where you are, no large difference in MOST of the US. 

Wind and quake are not the same thing: wind is by outside area and seismic is by the load inside. But it turns out, for reasonable residential and light commercial buildings, the wind stresses are not very different from seismic stresses in many-many areas of Calif. In fact I am desiging for wind force which works out like 0.2-0.4 times design roof-floor load, in many seismic zones I would design for 0.2 quake-factor. So the big sticks/panels that take wind will also take quake.

If I were designing heavy-storage loft or an empty atrium, the design forces would not be near-equal wind/quake. In a high-seismic zone (silt-mud near fault) quake would dominate. In Florida, wind dominates by far.

But mostly, _IF_ the structure is good for wind (many are dubious), it will take the kind of quakes that happen in "small/rare quake" zones.

FWIW: while my building could shake-down or blow-away, what REALLY kills buildings around here seems to be tired trucks. Couple times a year a truck plows into a house. While obviously rare, this is far more often than the reported shake/blow failures.

Me believe it was just a tremor and people just wanna blow it up...Californians would laugh at you little excited ones.  Earthquake, earthquake, earthquake...hahaha.

Peru... 6.8-7.0

coincidence? a whole lotta shakin going on..\

I like to joke that the pyramids in Egypt are like those lead wheel weights to balance out our planet wobble at speed.

JR

It was felt in Toronto...

And now Hurricane Irene. If you southerners don't stop her, she will come up here to Maine. Absurd!

I was living on the east coast back in the '50s when we had a similar warm atlantic and hurricane Hazel dropped by...  As i recall it tore off our garage doors...

Hurricanes happen...  I don't mind that it didn't break left and trash us in the gulf again...

JR

There was also a hurricane in Colorado at the same time.

PRR, do you build houses and stuff?

Love the pic!

Well, I'm sitting here in Hampton, VA, right on the tip of the peninsula, and it looks like we might be in for a direct hit from Irene. The computer models keep moving slightly westward which could put the worst part (the Northeast quadrant) right on top of us. Isabel was the last direct hit we got, and man did it tear some sh!t up. Hopefully those poor saps down in the Outer Banks will slow it down some before it hits us.

An earthquake and a major hurricane in one week, what fun. I know you Californians don't think much of our earthquake, so you should really come hang out this weekend for the real fun, then tell me who the "little excited ones" are.

Luckily my wife's parents have a generator, so I can go plug my soldering iron in over there if needs be.

I've lived through east coast hurricanes, and got spanked pretty hard by Katrina several years back when the eye passed right over me... Of course since hurricanes up there are less frequent, you will have more old tired trees, waiting around to be blown down.

Good luck...  weather and earthquakes happen...

JR

edit- for any of you young pukes who never experienced a direct hit from a hurricane the major inconvenience is power outages, and perhaps drinking water if you lose city water pressure.  get a huge ice chest and fill it up with enough beer and ice to last you for several days.  If you get slammed bad enough the cell phones will stop working after a few days when the battery/generators for the cell towers run down.  A small camp stove is great for making coffee and heating food.  Maybe sharpen your chainsaw blade and make sure you have fuel for the saw... Note: when there's no electricity the gas station pumps don't pump very well..  I would be surprised if there were widespread power outages lasting more than a couple days, but any outage can get unpleasant. The refer and frozen food will keep better if you don't open the door every two minutes. You will soon learn how dependent we are on electricity.  /edit

Trees (or lack thereof) were one of the main things I was looking at when we purchased this house. Any trees that looked like they could be a threat to my property have been cut back enough to point most of the weight away from my property. When Isabel came, the worst quadrant landed on top of us, and then the storm stopped moving so it just sat there and pounded us the entire day. We also had about three weeks of steady rain leading up to it, so the ground was completely saturated which led to a huge number of trees being uprooted. Luckily we don't have that same scenario this time. I know several people who lost there homes in that storm, either to trees or to flooding from the massive storm surge.

A cooler or two full of beer or liquor is a necessity in your hurricane survival kit, because the aftermath is like a long indefinite camping trip. Where I lived during Isabel, we were one block away from a fire station so we were lucky enough to have our power cut back on after about five days. All of the neighboring streets around me didn't get power back for another two weeks after that. We got some really dirty looks during that two weeks.

I have to be optimistic. My favorite thing about hurricanes is the beautiful weather the day after. It makes for an almost perfect day, aside from the lack of utilities and the chainsaw orchestra that starts as soon as the sun comes up. Plus events like these tend to bring out the best in most people. You gain a strengthened sense of community with people around you helping each other, people who normally only give/get a smile and a wave on occasion.

Unless of course you live in New Orleans, then it is every man for himself until the government gets here to fix everything for us. :-X

So I'm in a low-lying area, high water table. Sump pump runs if we get a bad rain.

So what are my options, other than prayer, when we lose power and the water rises? Okay, so I need a generator I guess....