Posted on 08/24/2014 12:49:15 PM PDT by lee martell
I had been up late writing quarterly reports as part of my job. I was listening to Schubert's Trout Quintet for strings and piano, on replay. If I must write reports, I like doing so at night, where the quiet forces me to focus. I had finally gone to bed, fading off into Dreamland, when felt unplanned motion. The bed rumbled, rocked. The walls were trembling . Instantly, I knew this was an earthquake, and the first thought was #1, How long would it last? #2. Where are my shoes, pants, car keys and wallets? I have Parakeets and Zebra Finches, The Parakeets were shrieking, flapping, fussing and biting each other, but the Finches were more stoic. First though, I have to plan for my own safety. Then as suddenly as it began, the shaking stopped cold. The The Elephant Eared houseplants against the wall had stopped their swaying and their bouncing. The few large cups and books had already fallen to the floor. The electricity was still on. The radio was back on. From my perspective, this was not a bad quake, in that there is no obvious structural damage.
Nothing like the 4.8 quake felt in the 1980's while living in Berkelely. During one of the tremors, I gazed near the front door, and it looked as though, for a few seconds, the door and the surrounding wooden threshold had temporarily dissolved. I'm not kidding. For a few seconds, my view of the door was to see it as a soft, wavering taffylike mass. Something that could not be described as solid. Two seconds later, all the taffy-behavior stopped. Nothing at all like the quake in 1989, which I recall fully. Not nearly as devastating. Did anyone else in the Bay Area feel the quake?
Building F-15s I presume?
No, I was a Program Security Manager working on classified contracts.
I was living near NAS Lemoore when the Coalinga CA quake hit back in the early 80’s.
Same thing about the wobbling buildings. I looked over a 200 sq acre alfalfa field and it was like the ocean.
Got seasick on land.
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