What tonight's San Francisco area 5.6 Earthquake can teach us

Sister -ist site, SFist, is reporting a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in the Bay Area, south of San Francisco. The USGS says...

A moderate earthquake occurred at 8:04:54 PM (PDT) on Tuesday, October 30, 2007. The magnitude 5.6 event occurred 8 km (5 miles) NNE of Alum Rock, CA. The hypocentral depth is 9 km ( 6 miles).

To us, that's a pretty decent earthquake. And at 5.5 or greater (here's the teaching us part), this is when we want to think about shutting our water off, according to officials in Community Emergency Response Team classes (CERT).

And as always, keep that water handy at home, at work and in your car.

Graphic from the USGS