Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Five Point Six

I was rearranging books on bookshelves last night when the earthquake hit. Things were rolling pretty hard where I was, so I thought it might be The Big One. Turns out it was only another Moderate One (5.6), but the biggest one we've had since the last Big One in 1989.

There was a story a couple of weeks ago that that the Hayward Fault (which runs about six blocks west of me) is a "tectonic time bomb" waiting to go off. There's been a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault every 140 years, on average, since 1315. Their last Big One was in October 1868.

1868+140 = 2008.

We're certainly due for another Big One, but fortunately last night wasn't it.

6 comments:

flasshe said...

Glad you're okay, Steve. I still don't understand why anyone would want to live somewhere where it could come falling down so easily at any time...

Sue T. said...

Geez, at least it beats SNOW, which you get every year -- we only have earthquakes occasionally!
My mom called this morning, anxiously asking about the earthquake. I told her I hadn't even noticed it. I hadn't seen a paper yet, so it was news to me. I think Joe & I were watching last night's "Colbert Report" at the time.

2fs said...

I don't live in an earthquake-prone area...so I suppose everyone who does has years ago grown jaded to the humor potential of the couple making love when the earthquake hits..."did the earth move for you too, honey?" Tip the veal, try the waitress.

Steve said...

I think we were watching last night's "Colbert Report" at the time

But the earthquake was at 8:04pm and Colbert isn't on until 8:30!

I definitely felt the earthquake, but it probably wasn't strong enough to reach that magic island in the middle of the Bay.

Sue T. said...

Steve: we were watching it on TiVo (recorded the previous evening at 11:30). Real time TV -- feh! Incidentally, one of Joe's coworkers who lives a few blocks away from us felt it, so hopefully that means our new house is extremely stable...

Steve said...

I was wondering if "last night's Colbert" was the one the night of the earthquake or the one from the night before the quake..