I'm 53 and have lived in Oklahoma City all of my life. First earthquake I ever felt was last year. It was much stronger. But before that I never realized you could hear these things coming. You hear the sound before the ground begins to shake.
I'd rather watch the tornadoes than deal with the earthquakes though :)
The Northridge quake arrived suddenly, no pre-quake noise at all where we were (2 miles from the epicenter).
There was a huge BANG! and then several minutes (felt like hours) of listening to every glass object in the house falling on the tiles and shattering.
Stinkin’ thing opened our cupboards and shook out all our stuff and smashed it. We kissed our knick-knacks goodbye, and our library was a jumble of tossed bookshelves and piles of books and bookends.
My GS1100 fell on the Trans Am, and both were damaged.
We were several weeks without power, and the FD had to send a pumper to keep up our water pressure in the neighborhood.
THAT was an earthquake.