February 23, 2007

Little shakey-poo? (cool site bonus)

I think we just had an earthquake. It was not very large, in fact it seemed pretty tiny. Maybe a three. It felt like a really, really, really fat guy jumped off a desk about ten cubicles away. Windows whuffed and the floor trembled once. No big deal. But it does put you on edge, waiting to see if that was a precursor to "the big one."

When I was in New Orleans two weeks ago, someone asked the obvious question: "Why would anyone build below sea level in the direct path of hurricanes?" (The best answer I heard: "You don't build a port on a hill.")

They might as well ask, "Why would anyone build where the ground moves suddenly and violently and without warning?"

While I was typing, the USGS updated their page. Apparently, it was a 3.4 in Berkeley. Felt like about a 3.0 here in my office in San Francisco.

And the link to the cool site? The USGS recent earthquakes site.

1 comment:

writtenwyrdd said...

Glad it wasn't a big one. I never used to mind those until I got caught in the loma prieta quake in 89, about 5 miles from the epicenter. Of course, the Marina district in SF was something like an 11 due to the liquefaction, but the 6.2 or whatever it turned out to be where I was was bad enough!

Before I left SF for Maine, I worked for a seismic engineering firm. Interesting place to be when you live in earthquake country...