Post
by Ryan H. Turner » Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:18 am
I lived through the Sylmar (I was FOUR!!!) and it broke my favorite toy drum dang it!! I distinctly remember it to this day, and standing up as the house was rocking and rolling and looking down the hallway at my parent's bedroom and screaming "SUMPTHIN'S HAPPNIN MOMMMMMMM!!" I was pretty scared, but it was temporary.
For the next major quake, I was in the dorms at CSULB that fateful morning when the Whittier Quake hit. Just like FSQ says, it's sort of hilarious to see people's reactions. When the Whittier quake hit, I immediately jumped out of bed, threw open my drapes on my dorm room, and was greeted by seeing my Resident Assistant across the way in her nightgown doing the same thing, but she was SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS!! It was sort of funny--in a sad scary sort of way. My roommate TOTALLY freaked out. That was a very strong earthquake.
The next FOUR earthquakes all centered around my time at Knott's Berry Farm as an esteemed employee there (yeah yeah yeah...we all have to start somewhere...so shut it.) The Sierra Madre quake happened, and that really shook up my mom who was back home in Pasadena by herself when it hit. The Landers quake happened on a day I was supposed to work, and knocked me out of bed at my condo in Placentia. I called in to KBF Security (where I worked) and the guy that was working in dispatch was CLEARLY freaked out, so I got in my clothes and hightailed it to work. While sitting at morning briefing the Big Bear Quake hit. OK OK OK...that's enough! But the coup de grace came in January of 1994, a few months before I would end up leaving. I was working graveyard security, and was just checking an office at the base of the Montezuma's Revenge roller coaster when the Northridge quake hit. I looked up to see Montezuma's rocking back and forth, back and forth, and THAT was a MAJOR quake. Very very scary.
For this Chino Hills quake, I was sitting in an office here in Riverside as I do some fire department consulting work and it was pretty strong. One big shift, a couple of shakes, and then a REALLY big shake, and then lots of rolling. I estimated the quake to have lasted a good strong 30-40 seconds. Ground floor cement foundation, and that quake kept on rolling for awhile. I was not mistaking like "building sway" for the earthquake. It was long.
First call was to my wife in Seattle to tell her I was fine just in case she turned on the news and heard there was a big earthquake. And because at first you don't know where the epicenter is, I figured if it was that strong in Riverside, and the epicenter was like in Los Angeles, than it would be safe to say we had had a MAJOR MAJOR quake. So I called Orange County Fire next to find out if they were ok, and they couldn't talk to me but they said it was busy. But no major damage....
Anyway...that's that. We're all good. Nothing more to see here. And yeah, earthquakes can be an annoyance or even "fun" I guess, but before you start getting to flippant about them, just remember, lots of people die every year in quakes.