Hey, what's shaking baby...

 Well it's the earth that's shaking. We have had a series of earthquakes, yesterday and last night that were 5.0 and better. The epicenter for most was Canyon Dam at the east end of Lake Almanor CA.      My oldest daughter lives in the town of Chester which is adjacent to the lake, and Yes she felt it. She had been shopping and as she was at the checkout stand, things started shaking and she could hear items falling off the shelves and breaking. Luckily, she got her groceries out before they had to close the store and do a major cleanup.

What surprised me was the fact that I had been thinking about posting some stories about earthquakes. To me it seemed to have been a long time since the last one and the one I remember distinctly was the one that destroyed the double decked freeway in Oakland, That was the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake and and we did not feel that one. Growing up in Southern California, I had experienced a lot of quakes and I had become somewhat bored with them. One occured at a jobsite in Marine Del Rey right about 6:30 AM and I was walking towards the lunch wagon to grab a coffee. I didn't feel it, but I was walking througth an area that had a lot structural steel shapes, stepping on one and then another. When I got to the coffee truck, everyone was talking about the quake. My short cut through the scattered structural steel had prevented me from feeling the quake.

I didn't feel the one that was centered in the Bakersfield area. I was probably 8 years old at the time but I was worried for my Grandpa as that was where he lived.

There were at least half a dozen more but none came close to the Loma Prieta quake. The big one in the 60's was the Sylmar quake. The damage it caused forced the State to write new construction codes. Then there was one where I could hear all of our framing rattling. It was an office tower and we had a lot of steel stud walls and they didn't have any drywall screwed on to them. The studs were simply standing in place, with just one screw, top and bottom so they were free to move as the quake directed. Bang, bang, bang, bang 

We moved to the city of Orland, where we had a 5 acre orchard. We also had an inground swimming pool and one I looked out to the pool, where I saw the water moving from north to south and then back again, four or five times before it slowed.

I'm sure that there are going to be even, we seem to be overdue for A Big One!