Good morning, here is your wake up call!

[palsgraf_polka]

Right under my fucking apartment building. Woke me up and startled the hell out of me.



Now it's time to go back to sleep for my last hour.

Comments

[reeeeeeeeflex.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. Sorry about that. That was me orgasming. I keep forgetting about the time difference. My neighbors are used to it. Anyway, I'll try to either have more subdued orgasms or jack off later in the day.

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

Impressive.

[reeeeeeeeflex.livejournal.com]

That's it? That's all you have to say? "Impressive"? I make the Mississippi River flow backwards for two and a half minutes due to my seismic activity, and that's all you can say?

I suppose the moon landing was "really cool."

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

Nah, the moon landing was fake.

[reeeeeeeeflex.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. So was my orgasm.

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

So now the truth comes out.

LOL I said "come".

[nova-42.livejournal.com]

you Californian's are awesome but insane. You live in a place that is either on fire or the ground is rumbling beneath your feet!?!?! FYI, thats mother nature trying to tell you something: "you're in an area meant for small rodents to have sex and thats about it...MOVE!!!


(you know i'm jk) LOL

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

Eh. I've been in some big fucking earthquakes (Northridge, Landers, Big Bear, Upland, Pasadena) and most of California is made up of wood frame buildings that for the most part will come through just fine (and I won't live in a crappy apartment building with tuck under parking, which are the ones that collapse) because they shake and shake and just go with the flow.

And fires can happen anywhere. I'll take quakes and fires over floods and hurricanes and tornadoes any day.

[nova-42.livejournal.com]

I'll take quakes and fires over floods and hurricanes and tornadoes any day

point taken, guess i'd feel the same way, good thing i don't live in Florida or Kansas lol

No, I don't know what my point is

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

...tornadoes...

Ha! Tornadoes are isolated storms that affect few. Earthquakes are widespread and kill billions each year. Yes, that's right. I said billions. So... ... ... Ever been in a tornado? It's terrifying.

Re: No, I don't know what my point is

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

You slay me. Quakes kill thousands in backwater 3rd world countries where they don't have building codes (I don't even know why I'm taking you seriously here) but in the US, they kill maybe a couple hundred, max. That is, of course, unless the New Madrid fault in your neck of the woods blows in the middle of the night and all of your stupid brick buildings (built on the site of the swarm of the largest 3 quakes ever recorded East of the Rockies) come crashing down around your heads. At least here on the West Coast where we're used to quakes, we build most of our buildings out of wood and steel. They might shake and bend and crack even, but for the most part, they don't come down. In Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois and Indiana, there are so many brick buildings and when that fault blows, she's going to blow. On December 16, 1811, it released two earthquakes with a magnitude of approximately 8.2 each and then on January 23, 1812, it released an 8.1 earthquake. That's just insanity. The San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 ranged anywhere from a 7.7 to an 8.2. Can you imagine three of those in the space of 6 weeks? 2 of them in the same day? Entire lakes just disappeared into the ground, and new lakes appeared where no water had been. According to reports, the ground actually shot holes of steam out of them like cannon blasts.

And that's where you live. Food for thought. Is your house wood frame or brick?

And no, I have never been in a tornado or a hurricane, and I don't really ever want to.

Re: No, I don't know what my point is

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

Yup. Earthquakes kill hundreds of billions of people every year right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. And yup, all of us here in flyover country walk on our tippy toes everywhere we go for fear of awakening the New Madrid fault.

Okay, I'll stop being facetious. I just thought that was kinda funny, the image of millions of people walking on their tiptoes because they're afraid of earthquakes.

Anyway, the dangers of the New Madrid fault are pretty well known in the midwest. There are many other faults here, too. We had a 5.0 earthquake last year in April, caused by the Wabash Valley Fault, IIRC. Scared the hell out of me. It was a little bitty quake and still it toppled brick walls as far away as Louisville. So yeah, when the New Madrid finally lets go, it will be biblical in scale.

Another thing the 1811-12 quakes did was they caused the Mississippissippippi River to flow back'ards! The surface erupted into whitecaps and water spilled over the banks as the entire flow stopped and reversed. Sand blows erupted out of the earth, too. There are some old sandblows in this general vicinity, layers where dozens of feet of sand appear for no apparent reason. Geologists estimate the sand was expelled from beneath the surface from underground pressure from the quake. It's all pretty frightening, really.

I think I read somewhere the faults in this area are called orphan faults. I could be wrong about that, but about this I'm sure: They're called that because there are no tectonic plates grinding against each other here. We're all solidly upon the North American Plate. Scientists aren't sure why there are faults here. Maybe they're archaic faults left over from billions of years ago. Who knows? Geology grinds on ever so slowly.

My house is wood. After the last quake, we inspected for damage and found none. I have noticed a few more pronounced ripples in the walls, though. It's an old house, built in 1915. That's old by American standards, anyway. Our basement doesn't date from Roman times like a basement in Europe might. Wouldn't that be fascinating? If my basement was that old I'd be digging in it trying to find something, anything.

[arthur-sc-king.livejournal.com]

Kewl!

Too far away for us, but I can see that being a tad startling at 0422.

[arthur-sc-king.livejournal.com]

Some Canadian comic (Ron James?) recently commented, on returning from having lived in CA for a few years, that between the fires, the floods, and the earthquakes, it was a bit like living in the Old Testament.