There was an earthquake at 4:30 AM this morning!

[The Fetus]

On the news (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/illinois.earthquake/?iref=mpstoryview)

Man, so there was an earthquake last night. I was sleeping and the bed shook and I woke up and realized everything was shaking. I heard rattling and crap in my living room, I thought someone was fighting or something, but I didn't hear any yelling. At first I thought it was thunder, but I didn't hear anything, and my apartment was shaking for about 40 seconds straight. About a minute later my friend from Illinois called me up, I answered and the first thing he said was, "Did you just feel that?"

Anyway, it was ridiculous. I've never been in an earthquake before, so it was really exciting and scary. My mom is from Turkey--There are quite a few earthquakes there-- she said it was no big deal, but my dad and I were shitting our pants.

The earthquake started in Evansville Indiana and went all the way into the eastern parts of Missouri. People in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia also sent in reports of earthquakes. (It's all in the article.)

I only know that less than a handful of you live in the midwest, so this thread is not about an earthquake 99/100ths of you didn't know about.

Anyone else experience any exciting natural disasters?

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[dnL_Flipped]

Where I am, near Sudbury Ontario. There is alot of earthquakes. However, none have been expected and/or predicted. The Cambiran shield is very sturdy and does not shift very often, and there aren't many earthquakes near me. How common are they for you?

[Dabamash]

We had an earthquake a few weeks ago in England. They are very rare, so it was quite surprising when it hit in at 1am. Weirdly, the last earthquake we had (possibly 2 years ago) hit at almost the same time, I think there was only six minutes between them. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but it still nearly shook me out of bed :D.

[Cristo]

Once in Belgium, once in Bali.

Nothing special or scary to be honest.

[Far]

We had an earthquake a few weeks ago in England. They are very rare, so it was quite surprising when it hit in at 1am. Weirdly, the last earthquake we had (possibly 2 years ago) hit at almost the same time, I think there was only six minutes between them. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but it still nearly shook me out of bed :D.

Earthquakes aren't rare anywhere in the world. There are literally thousands happening daily. Earthquakes that are felt however are rare.

[Spastic]

I have only been in two earthquakes. I was in the huge 1989 earthquake in San Francisco. Though I was really young at the time I can remember the roads looking like waves and cars getting bounced and slamming into each other. The other was a small one that felt like a large truck had drove past our house, and only lasted for about 15 seconds.

[Audioslave]

Oh man Fetus, you rock my world.

[CnGy]

I felt it tooooo.

5:30 here. Woke me up. Weird shit.

[CalculatePie314]

Apparently, we were hit here, in Detroit, but I guess it wasn't as bad. At least, it didn't wake me up. They felt it on the west side of state, though.

[Idioteque]

That was so odd, especially since Chicago rarely gets quakes, to get shook awake like that.
It was really only minor, but I'm a light sleeper so it woke me up.

[Matterialize]

Anyone else experience any exciting natural disasters?


A few years ago we had a sizeable tornado in southern Ontario, right in the middle of my town. The weather had been shitty all day and several thousand people (myself included) were out on the streets for the annual Joe Persechini Run (one of those charity things where the runners raise money for donations). It started getting really gusty, and then the rain began, and quickly escalated. Then the hail started - combined with the strong winds, the hail was actually painful and stung pretty hard. People weren't prepared - we were all in tees and jogging shorts, or other light exercise clothing.

The skies were almost pitch black. We kept going though, because hey - it's a charity drive, and people had paid us for it. That was when the tornado hit.

I couldn't see it very well because of the darkness, but it was pretty much right on top of us. It was really fucking loud. I was a pretty small kid, and apparently I was lifted off my feet and had to be held down.

Anyway, I don't think anyone died. There were a lot of injuries from debris though. Everyone managed to get off the streets until the thing passed. I got to camp out in the mall!

[Raxo]

That was so odd, especially since Chicago rarely gets quakes, to get shook awake like that.
It was really only minor, but I'm a light sleeper so it woke me up.

I got scared as shit because that never happens in Chicago. No one else in my family felt in and they thought I was crazy until I showed them the news on TV.

I'm also a light sleeper by the way.

My friend who goes to the University of Illinois was rattled awake by hard rumbling as it hit harder there. Worse was that he was also piss drunk so he got scared and depressed.

[TangerineOrange]

I live in Maine, so generally, the worst weather we get around here is a snowstorm. The last hurricane that struck the area was Hurricane Bob, back in '92, I believe. However, when I was entering my junior year of high school, I managed to see a tornado. For those who don't know, Maine, on average, gets two tornadoes a year. Needless to say, I saw one, and it was not only awesome, but incredibly scary as well. It touched down in the water, so I suppose it is technically called a "water spout", and when it did, it started hailing.

[jewishjosh]

I didn't know you got noticeable earthquakes in the Midwest. I thought we only got them out here on the west coast and the rest of North America was pretty much safe. We had one 6 years ago that hit Seattle pretty hard, and even though it barely affected us everyone freaked the hell out because they're still pretty rare. It wasn't really that bad and in retrospect it was kind of cool. If a tornado hit I'd be scared shitless though, it's definitely not what we'd expect here.

[Niki]

We felt it in Michigan too. It wasn't bad enough to even wake me up here though.

[potolife]

For some reason, I was able to sleep through it. The rest of my family felt it, though. I'm right up by Chicago and I'm surprised anyone felt it up here. I knew there was that fault line there, but I never thought we'd actually get one let alone feel it. I heard the felt it all the way into Wisconsin and Indiana.

[BlackHood]

I nearly managed to sleep through the one on boxing day in Thailand. My sister came in and woke me up, for some reason my parents wanted to get out of the hotel.

[CrumPoker]

We had an earthquake a few weeks ago in England. They are very rare, so it was quite surprising when it hit in at 1am. Weirdly, the last earthquake we had (possibly 2 years ago) hit at almost the same time, I think there was only six minutes between them. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but it still nearly shook me out of bed :D.

That was about a month ago, it was 5.something on the rictor scale (if thats how its spelt) and we didn't have one like it in 25 years.
I'd know, I live in England too.

[hzac]

Earthquakes aren't rare anywhere in the world. There are literally thousands happening daily. Earthquakes that are felt however are rare.

Well, thats pretty obvious. Why would he mention an earthquake he couldnt feel?

[JonC]

I was awake up when it happened. I was sitting there reading and all of a sudden the house started to shake and I was like, "wow thats peculiar." And my cousin was over, so when I walked out of the room I was in he comes up to me and says, "Jon, what the hell was that? blah blah blah." I made mention of it being an earthquake, but then stated we don't have earthquakes here, at least we never feel them anyway.

After that I walked outside just to see if anyone else was out there, etc, and my lesbian neighbor came outside and we talked to her for like, a minute and went in side. I then turned on the news and sure enough it was an earthquake.

The only damage reports noted here in Louisville, is a facade falling off some building and busting all over the sidewalk, and a water mane bursting.

[BurgerKueen]

I felt 2 major ones in Turkey back in 1999. One of them had a magnitude of 7.2 and the other 7.6 and killed about 40,000 people in total. The first one lasted about 37 seconds and was at 3am in the morning so it was really terrifying. I was about 80km away from the main base but it still felt like we were in the middle of it, so I can't even imagine how the people who managed to survive it must have felt.

The large number of deaths was also due to the poorly made buildings, as you can see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1999_Izmit_earthquake_Mosque.gif

The Mosque and the buildings behind it are still standing, but the ones around it have shattered into pieces, literally. Even the standing ones weren't safe to live in though.

[Casalen]

Loser. Try living on a fault line like the rest of us, it's not that special. Although the above definitely beats me in quality of quakes.

[innerearth]

I live in Las Vegas; we get little left over quakes when they happen in California. Most the time you just get woken up everything shakes a little bit for about 5-10 seconds. Then you go back to sleep.

[frescoSteph]

I don't know why everyone is so convinced that we get so many Earth quakes in California. The last one I remember I was like, 11. I don't mind them at all. Unless of course terrible things happen like buildings crashing and kittens dying.

[BurgerKueen]

Well in Turkey, a bunch of earthquakes happen all the time but no one even bothers talking about them because they don't cause any harm. The ones I talked about were pretty extreme though. They are on the list of the most devastating earthquakes of the late 20th century. So after experiencing those, I find it funny when people talk about how horrible earthquakes are. I wanna be like, you haven't seen shit honey. :smile:

[wired]

We get like an earthquake a day here. They are really common. Last monday we had three.
Apparantly Matata (about half an hour away) has been going through an earthquake swarm the last couple of years.

A couple of months ago we had one that was about 6.3 in Gisborne (4 hours away).
That one was pretty big.

[Casalen]

I don't know why everyone is so convinced that we get so many Earth quakes in California.

I think it has something to do with this:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/

Although I also haven't felt a good sized one for years. It means the fault lines are planning something.

[John Travolta]

What a God awful thread.
I live in Maine, so generally, the worst weather we get around here is a snowstorm. The last hurricane that struck the area was Hurricane Bob, back in '92, I believe. However, when I was entering my junior year of high school, I managed to see a tornado. For those who don't know, Maine, on average, gets two tornadoes a year. Needless to say, I saw one, and it was not only awesome, but incredibly scary as well. It touched down in the water, so I suppose it is technically called a "water spout", and when it did, it started hailing.

Literally talking about the weather.

[Derelict]

It was sunny for two days straight here until a few hours ago. None of us west coast people knew what the fuck to do. God damn disaster, alright.

[pinky33]

I live on one of the most seismic active places but have never felt a real earthquake, it sucks.

[Riddlebox]

The Nisqually earthquake hit Seattle a little. It was still pretty strong though, knocked a bunch of desks over, and shook down the T.V. from the wall. Besides getting to go home, the best part was just right after the earthquake started, my teacher yelled "What the Jesus Christ-fuck?!" half way through her lecture on the history of lewis and Clark or whatever the hell it was.

My first concern was to see whether or not Rainier was erupting. When I had seen that it wasn't I calmed down considerably. By the time I remembered to get under my desk it was over, so it wasn't really that big a deal.

[JustDann]

I know. My math teacher, the one person in the world which makes the fat Yo Mama jokes true, fell out of bed. :mnyd:

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