Things that go bump in the night (and day)

For some odd reason I found myself up at 2:17am. Why ? I don't really know. But lucky for me, it was quake time!

I was just lying in bed listening to the radio. Suddenly there was a brief jolt---as if someone bumped the bed OR like 20 pounds of tabby cat named Oscar leaping up onto the bed. But then just after the jolt the shaking started. Not too long of a shake, maybe a second. But for the first time ever I heard the glass in the back door rattle---as if someone was trying to force their way into the house. It was pretty creepy for such a small quake.

As it turned out, the epicenter was only about 7 miles away out in Santa Monica Bay off Hermosa Beach. And it weighed in as a 3.6.

For the encore, the following afternoon at 5pm there was a 3.8----centered just a bit further west than the first quake. For this guy I was camped on the couch watching Coraline when the house seemed to be on one giant 'Magic Fingers' machine. For about two seconds everything shook pretty well. Not strong enough to damage anything, but strong enough to let you know that its was quaking!

I'm off to Sydney in a day, so I'll make two predictions. One, there won't be any quakes in Sydney---it's far away from any plate boundaries. Two, I predict they'll be a M5 or so quake in LA. Because all the cool stuff happens when I am out of town...

Culver City 3.0 May 15, 2010

Normally a 3.0 earthquake at 4:33am wouldn't be felt---I would be asleep! But as fate would have it, this morning I was just getting in from a late night of fun.

It was just after 4:30 in the morning, I had just hit the bed after getting in from a late night A-Team wrap party thing when this quick jolt hit. It sounded and felt almost exactly like my cat Oscar jumping up onto the bed. In fact, I turned over to see him after I felt the quake. But when there was no Oscar in sight I realized it must have been a quick quake.

It was a very sudden jolt. Like someone kicking my bed or someone slamming the front door hard. Due to the quickness I was sure the epicenter was very nearby---in fact it was just over two miles away. And it was kind of shallow---at 5.2 miles. On the map the red star is where my house is and the blue star was the epicenter.

I got up to survey the pool to look for any wave action, however there was none.

Baja California 7.2 Easter Sunday 2010

DAMN! I missed it!

Sadly I was driving home from a friends when the quake struck, which made it kinda of confusing and almost impossible to feel.

As it happened, I was preparing to stop at Aviation Boulevard and Imperial Highway near LAX. I pulled up to the red light and stopped and at that moment thought I felt something strange---however sitting in a car you are isolated quite a bit from the ground motion. And it didn't help that at the same moment I was sitting at the light, a semi trailer heading east bound on Imperial bumped over the train tracks rather violently. So I attributed the weird feeling to the semitrailer.

So as I waited at the light, I did see one rather odd thing. Looking north toward LAX I could see a United A320 on approach to the south runway. As the aircraft crossed the threshold however, the pilot did not continue to flare and land the aircraft. It kind of did a low, slow fly by. Which is I thought odd because with a normal go around called, the aircraft should go gear up, throttle up and immediately climb and get ready to turn to avoid any departing traffic from the right side runway. But this United Airbus just slowly continued on, essentially flying above the runway about 100 feet. But again, I just dismissed it as odd, but not extraordinary.

As I proceeded on, I reached Century Boulevard and the text messages and calls started to fly. My friend Dan texted me he felt it and I talked to my friend Ron who felt it. DAMN! As I turned on to Century I realized it must have been something because a lot of people were standing around having vacated hotels, offices, and air freight buildings. Also the LAX fire department had removed all of their trucks from the fire station and parked them outside---as per normal procedure after a large quake. DAMN! I was really starting to get upset at this point!

By the time I got home the only evidence I found was by the pool---enough water had sloshed out that the deck was all wet. And the pool continued to be very wavy with a really, really cool low frequency wave. Essentially one end would rise about 6 inches over about 5 seconds while the other end would drop, and then it would slosh back to the other end of the pool. Normally you don't see that in the pool because simply jumping in doesn't produce that kind of motion. It takes something essentially shaking the whole pool at once to generate something like that.

Well, I wish I could have felt it---or even have been in the pool when it hit---but oh well.

Next time...