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July 29, 2008
5.4 Earthquake Strikes Southern California*
Did you feel that? Yes you did. That was a 5.4 magnitude earthquake (preliminary reports stated that it was a 5.8 and then 5.6) out of the Chino Hills area that struck at 11:42 a.m., according to the USGS, who considers this to be a "moderate" earthquake. Chino Hills is 29 miles southeast of Downtown Los Angeles.
It was a nice and long one too. 10 seconds? 20 seconds? (or maybe out time perspective was skewed)
CBS2 on air live is reporting that there are some cell phone tower outages and a 3.8 magnitude aftershock occurred shortly after. As of 12:25 p.m., there had been a total of 10 aftershocks. A cell phone call from our phone could not go through, probably due to the system being overwhelmed.
The Los Angeles Fire Department is reporting no immediate damage reported within city limits, but buildings were swaying in downtown. Closer to the epicenter, there are reports of some damage to objects inside homes and an intersection in City Terrace has been closed down due to flooding, possibly caused by the quake.
There is a one in 20 chance that this was a foreshock to a larger quake, according to CBS2, but we are more likely to feel a series of aftershocks in the upcoming weeks.
To compare, the major 1994 Northridge Earthquake was a magnitude 6.7 quake. "Each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude," according to the USGS.
Map of location embedded below and more info to come....
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rock n roll!
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I didn't think it was that big.
I was actually going outside to hit the water pipe and the door started shaking, and I just thought it was the washing machine moving, but then the whole house started to follow.
fun times.
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A short but side to side shaker down here in Santa Monica - hope those folks in Chino are doin' ok.
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Here in Monrovia it was a slow roll for a Good Long Time. Probably 45 seconds or more. It didn't knock anything down, but there was significant movement.
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yep....pretty funny and scary
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There was some up and down downtown, but that could have just been amplified from being 37 floors in the sky.
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I'm on the 3rd floor of a building in Santa Monica and that felt like a lonnnng one. What's funny, or sad, is that we didn't know what to do but just stand around and wait for it to end. Jumping under desks don't work, right?
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BOOM! My first earthquake. Welcome to LA.
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Brentwood side-to-side as well! I totally froze, didn't follow the lead of everyone by getting under the desks!
This forced me to look into my emergency kit and noticed the water bottles in there are all caving in with dates of 2003.
Wake up call!!!
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Didn't even feel it, here by LAX.... used to the ground shaking from planes, I guess.
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Whoa- we felt it here in Hollywood. The house shook, but nothing fell down.
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I'm on the 5th floor of the Water Garden in Santa Monica and we shook a LOT.
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Here in Venice, our office rolled side to side for what seemed like an eternity (45 sec??) - we all just walked outside and looked at our neighbors and pretended to surf the rolls :)
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My first, too, Farley. Wheeee!
Woke me outta bed. And I hate waking up any earlier than noon.
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Felt here in Century City - 37th floor. A bit of rolling and lots of swaying.
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A quick survey of my co-workers has Verizon and T-Mobile phones working while Spring and AT&T phones are down.
Hopefully that earthquake relieves whatever pressure's building up on the fault line for a while.
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So, that stuff about pets knowing first seems true. My cat FLIPPED OUT about two minutes before things started shaking.
Happy to report here at Streetsblog we're all ok. We being me and the cat. The bobblehead collection is still angry.
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There is a one in 20% chance that this was a foreshock to a larger quake? that makes zero sense, i am assuming i should remove the percent sign?
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I am on the 3rd floor of a building in Sherman Oaks that had to be rebuilt after the Northridge quake. It felt pretty significant here... weird thing is just this morning as I was coming in to work I had a fleeting thought about how I hoped to never be in this building during a quake since much of the reconstruction around here leaves me with doubts. A friend of mine lived in a redone building around the corner from here and when you walked the halls they were obviously not even close to being level. Anyway, it felt like it went on forever - we were standing in the doorway having a conversation as it continued.
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OMGWTFBBQ!
On the 4th floor of a building in Culver City we had some good side-to-side shaking for about 10 seconds.
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We have 3 women visiting from our Ohio office - they thought it was a bomb and took off running down 2 stairs. They're still a bit shaken up...but yeah, we welcomed them to CA
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Ok, so I lied...it's intermittent, my unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile's working, my co-workers on T-Mobile are not able to make calls.
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Felt it like crazy in Pasadena. Felt like it was 15 seconds. Also, i've lived in CA for a long time and this is my first real earthquake. I hated it. BOOO earth with mankind killing abilities.
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Lots of transplants in my Beverly Hills office were/are freaked out.
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My 10th floor office in a Koreatown high-rise on Wilshire was definitely swaying for close to a minute. I'm a SoCal native, so I've been through my fair share of quakes, but never this high up off the ground. Definitely a strange sensation.
Kinda freaking out a little bit too- most of my family is in the Diamond Bar/Chino Hills area. It's been pretty impossible to get a hold of anyone out there for the last 40 min.
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Up on the 9th floor of a 12 storey building, built on rollers to sway during an earthquake. Lots of swaying, so difficult to tell when the actually stopped moving (as opposed to just our bldg find equilibrium). I didn't seek cover. It was a weird sensation being up high during an earthquake -- not the usu. rumble-jolt I'm used to being closer to the ground. Perhaps this was an S-wave, as opposed to T-Wave event, though.
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Pretty strong in OC, near the Orange Crush.
We are on the second floor of a 2 story building and it was swinging and rocking pretty hard.
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in el sereno, a long wavy one. it was kind of bizarre how long it rolled on.
well, the cat is back on her perch, so i suppose everything is back to normal.
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Oh, our bldg is in the Miracle Mile.
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i don't care for those odds.
and that was not a fun way to wake up from a nap.
=(
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In a basement in West LA. My office had a good laugh about it from our posts in all our doorways.
Cell service outages are annoying though. Especially if it's going to be on the news in the rest of the country.
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i'm also in pasadena and it hit pretty hard here.
i jumped under my desk and it seemed endless. ugh. i hate earthquakes.
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We felt rolling here where I am in Beverly Hills that lasted about 15 seconds. No damage, no injuries that I know of.
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Reporting from Glendale, it was severe enough for us to evacuate the building (being on the 9th floor may have amplified it). Some strong shaking.
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6th floor building on Sunset and Wilcox. Our building was still creaking/swaying 15-20 minutes after the quake, which made the experience creepy instead of fun. :(
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Goody, goody, earthquake tales.
I've experienced the '71(yes I'm old), '83 '87 '92 and '94 earthquakes.
This one was a breeze.
Earthquake veteran:
'71 San Fernando Valley
'83 Coalinga
'87 Whitter Narrows
'92 Landers/Big Bear
'94 Northridge
'08 Chino
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/historical_state.php#california
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Smack in the center of downtown LA, 7th floor and surrounded by windows. The creaking was more unnerving than the earthquake itself.
I'm not a California native, but I was a little disappointed. I had more of a, 'That's it?' response. Ready for the next.
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its funny that AT&T,which they say has more bars in more places...is having connection problems. ..
my texts seem like they are sending...but phone calls are not working...
its like they only have one tower and its located in chino hills.
what gives?
so much for reliability..
when everything started to shake...i just walked outside.
i love reading about how non california natives react to earthquakes....great reading
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earthquakes are big news, but would rather read about audrina partridge, lol. i'm a fan of the show and glad to know what she wears around the house.
dave
gocalifornia.blogspot.com
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yikes, not a fun two days, first a stabbing and then an earthquake! on the 22nd floor in Century City...everyone is nauseous.
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I'm with you on that emoney...sign me up for part 2...good times...
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I was on the 8th floor of a builing on rollers and that earthquake was scary! I'm a CA native and have felt my share of earthquakes but that was my first one experienced in a high rise. Our building, located near LAX, was rolling for at least 5 minutes. I booked it down the 8 flights of stairs as soon as I realized the rolling wasn't ending any time soon.
But as freaked out as I was, I felt really bad for the window washers who had been cleaning the 10th floor wondows at the time.
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I'm down in Santa Ana and our building shook for a good minute and a half or so..