Bay Area earthquake

[Angry_Gumball]

Upon prepping my halloween costume, I hear this rumble...a second later, things start to shake up...this lasted a good 15 seconds or so. It was centered between Fremont and San Jose and was a 5.6. Being in Hayward, luckily nothing fell...my shelves are deadly I must say. If they fall, everything in my room's pretty much screwed. Anyone else feel it?

[phazan]

I just felt it! It's the first earthquake I've ever felt after living in California for 17 years!! WOOO!! It was fun!!!!

[speedracer]

Sure did, was bigger than usual. Have broken glass everywhere, knocked alot off the shelves, luckily nothing more. Now we get to wait for the aftershocks

[Sunfire]

I just felt it too. I've never felt one before. That caught me off guard!

[speedracer]

Biggest one since the 1989 I believe, thank goodness it was a short one:

 

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc40204628.php

[SharkTums]

NOT AMUSED!!!

 

Keep it up there!!!

[dpxtreme]

I sure as hell felt it. It was in Alum Rock which is about 5 miles from San Jose. This is the first "big" earthquake I felt.

[Sunfire]

This was very unexpected. I was just sitting here on the computer, and everything shook violently. Luckily nothing broke.

[Bush985]

Wow. I felt it alright. I ran outside to see the signal lights shaking about nearly a foot each direction. Im just nervous for the aftershocks...

 

Hope everyone is alright. Luckily I didn't loose anything.

[Sean Menefee]

That's why you live in Sacramento RD ^, we're safe from just about everything but flooding.

 

Glad to hear all of my NorCal buddies are doing a-ok, take care folks.

 

-Sean

[Sean Menefee]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_re_us/california_earthquake;_ylt=AnDnMWAaaQseGv75ynFwrgDBF4l4

 

Moderate earthquake rattles Bay Area

 

By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

 

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A magnitude-5.6 earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area Tuesday night, rattling homes and nerves, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.

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The moderate temblor struck shortly after 8 p.m., about 9 miles northeast of San Jose, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Residents reported feeling the quake as far east as Sacramento and as far north as Sonoma.

 

The California Highway Patrol has received no reports of damage or injuries, spokesman Tom Marshall said.

 

The epicenter of the quake was near Alum Rock, in the Diablo Range foothills east of San Jose — not far from the home of San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed.

 

Pictures fell off the walls of Reed's house, but the mayor said there was no major damage there.

 

"It was a pretty strong ride here, a lot of shaking but nothing broken," Reed told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his home. "I've talked to a few people and we have no reports of injuries or damage. There was a lot of shaking, but it wasn't the big one."

 

Amrit Shergill, a night cashier at Alum Rock Shell gasoline station in San Jose, said there was no damage other than some small items that toppled off a shelf — but the intensity of the shaking sent her outside and crouching on the sidewalk.

 

"My God, I felt like running because the roof might come down on my head," said Shergill, who was born in India. "I've never felt anything like this in 16 years in the United States."

 

Rod Foo, a resident of south San Jose, about 10 miles from the epicenter, said everything in his house shook for several seconds, but the electricity never went out and his telephone was still working.

 

"I could hear it coming up the street before it hit the house," said Foo, a former reporter with the San Jose Mercury News. "I thought it was the kids messing around at first, then I felt the house shaking and I knew it was an earthquake. ... It was rattling for a long time and really loud."

 

The USGS reported 10 aftershocks, the biggest with a preliminary magnitude of 2.1.

 

In downtown San Jose, the quake caused a pipe to break, streaming water into the parking garage of a condo building, according to the Mercury News.

 

An employee at Beverages and More, a liquor store in Milpitas, a few miles from the epicenter, reported a few broken wine bottles.

 

Allison Guimard, 25, a technology executive who lives in Mountain View, about 18 miles west of the epicenter, said her china started shaking and she grabbed her dog. It was the first significant earthquake for Guimard and her husband, Pierre, who moved here from New York six months ago.

 

"It felt like the apartment was rolling — shaking and rolling," said Pierre Guimard, 25, a home entertainment installer. "Almost like a boat on the water."

 

Bob Redding, a dispatcher at the California Highway Patrol dispatch center in the Central Valley town of Atwater, 70 miles east of the epicenter, said the office had received calls from numerous locations in the valley, but CHP had received no reports of injuries.

 

"When it first hit, we thought a truck might have hit our building," Redding said. "But it was just one jerk."

 

A representative of Caltrain, which runs light rail between Silicon Valley and San Francisco, said all trains were stopped as soon as the earthquake hit, and they've been running at restricted speeds ever since. There were no reports of injuries or other problems. The trains were expected to remain in service until midnight.

 

A spokesman for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, which runs underground and aboveground trains throughout the region, said all trains were stopped soon after 8 p.m. for five minutes. Train operators were then instructed to run trains at half their normal speed, and look out the windows and perform track inspections at every stop.

 

"There's no damage so far and we're not anticipating any," said BART spokesman Linton Johnson. He said trains were running five to seven minutes behind schedule but were expected to get back on schedule later Tuesday evening.

 

The last major earthquake in Northern California — a magnitude-7.1 — struck in October 1989 just before the third game of the World Series at Candlestick Park. The quake, centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains on the San Andreas fault, killed 62 people and caused nearly $3 billion in damage.

 

Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the state would "will review and inspect all important infrastructure," including levees in the coming days.

 

Earthquakes powerful enough to be felt through the Central Valley have been of increasing concern since Hurricane Katrina because of their potential to weaken the earthen levees that channel rivers throughout the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

___

 

Associated Press Writers Rachel Konrad in San Francisco, Tom Verdin in Sacramento and Aaron Davis in Sacramento contributed to this report.

[Coaster Palooza]

Nothing broke at our house and everyone is fine. Our cats got pretty scared though.

 

Our phones didn't work for about 30 minutes too.

[BeemerBoy]

This was very unexpected.

 

I'd think that a blizzard in Miami would be unexpected.

 

Glad everyone's alright though.

[dandaman]

Wow.

 

Not 7 hours before, we were discussing Bay Area earthquakes in geography.

 

^ Agreed. "Unexpected" would likely mean you had very little thought that it would ever happen. Considering Frisco's placement on the faults, I'd say it was inevitable.

 

Biggest NorCal quake since Loma Prieta? THAT surprises me.

 

Now, a blizzard in Miami could actually hap... ah, who cares, it'll all be underwater in 50 years anyway.

[Bush985]

The aftershocks continue. I think we are arond 30+ now. There was one about 5 mins ago which was really close to 3.7 magnitude, largest so far.

[BeemerBoy]

Now, a blizzard in Miami could actually hap... ah, who cares, it'll all be underwater in 50 years anyway.

Funny you should mention it. I wish I could find the picture from the time it snowed in Miami. I was about 3 years old and all bundled up out in front of our house. The flakes were just barely visible in the pic. Ah, good times. Anyway, back to the earthquake talk.

[Freefallbestrideever]

Good luck, i heard on the History Channel that most of your buildings aren't up to code because they had no regulations when they were built.

[speedracer]

^ When I found out the actual magnitude, I was suprised there wasn't more damage. You hear about earthquakes around the world this size or smaller killing hundreds if not thousands of people. Considering no one died is proof all the retrofitting of many old buildings and bridges out here paid off. The shortness of it also was a factor, but with a bigger longer lasting quake which they keep telling us to expect, can't guarantee we'll get off as easy as we did this time.

[rolercstrluvr]

It pretty much depends on the depth of where it happens, this one was only 5.5 miles down while the Loma Prieta was 11 miles down. The farther down it is, the higher the magnitude. Huge difference.

[phazan]

^ When I found out the actual magnitude, I was suprised there wasn't more damage. You hear about earthquakes around the world this size or smaller killing hundreds if not thousands of people. Considering no one died is proof all the retrofitting of many old buildings and bridges out here paid off. The shortness of it also was a factor, but with a bigger longer lasting quake which they keep telling us to expect, can't guarantee we'll get off as easy as we did this time.

 

Other places in the world, buildings are made of mud! I know you were saying how strong our buildings are, but when you have a mud house, it's pretty much guaranteed to fall at some point or another...We don't really need proof, heheh