The L.A. / Orange County Earthquake:
Our household didn't handle the earthquake real well on Sunday night (May 17, 2009). We jumped off our computers and ran to look at each other in dismay. It was not totally unexpected nor unpredictable. It's just that when an earthquake happens, you forget the routine. The scary shaking, the unknown, and the waiting to see if that's all that will happen. When you get a shaker, you think, is this it? Is it finished?
I looked on the internet as the local TV stations that will cut into tv programming for most anything at all didn't even flicker and say hello. I went to the radio, which was slow to spring to action as well. So I went to the Internet and my favorite source, a map with reports of who felt the quake, where did they feel it, and how strong was it.
I heard the report come trickling in mentioning Lynwood, a city near Inglewood. Oh great! It's the Newport-Inglewood fault, the very one my house sits on, I thought. They say this fault line has not been active for a long time and should start to get busy shaking any time from now till the next few decades. They just don't know when. Because it partially sits on a wetlands and houses built on liquefaction areas (former swamps), the tsunami signs and possibility of houses sinking are just one more reason to feel unassured that we're living in the right place. Yet the houses are cheaper than the $2 million houses on the hill (also on the fault line), and as the crow flies, the ocean is just a short breeze away.
We survived another quake and nothing broke. However, this wasn't the big one that we all know is overdue and expected to come any time now.
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