Reply #: Earthquake

[Irritable Liberal]

Then again I live in L.A. and was caught in one of the worst hit neighborhoods in the '94 Northridge earthquake. It hit at 4 AM and they say move into the doorway if you can during an earthquake. I couldn't get off the bed & my wife and I held each other and just screamed for the minute or so it was happening. I didn't hear anything breaking but everything broke, it sounded as though a train was passing through the bedroom at full speed. We lived in a three story condo and it was a miracle the building didn't collapse.

The wood support columns, about 18" think all sheared off where they met with the concrete foundation above the subterranean garage. When the building was torn down to be rebuilt the engineers said the entire building shifted 18 inches in one direction and then back again, settling almost where it started out from. Had it shifted another couple of inches it probably would have collapsed.

I haven't lived through any other natural disasters but I can't imagine anything more terrifying than that one minute. It was a lot scarier than been held up at gunpoint which has happened to me a couple of times.