The Northridge Earthquake Rocked Southern California 30 Years Ago. We Asked For Your Memories

"It was pitch black, so I couldn't see my surroundings, but I carefully got out of bed, barefoot, and crept to the living room over broken glass. I righted the bird cage that had been slammed to the floor. My neighbor knocked on my door and we set about checking on others and congregated with blankets till the sun came out when we could assess damages. The building eventually got red tagged about five days later and were given just a few hours to vacate. There was not a single truck to be rented in the whole city. I was lucky to be invited to throw as much as I could collect in a friend’s garage and sleep on his couch for the next week. I was displaced, so I had to make changes, but to this day I am not 'prepared' for a natural disaster."

"I'd never felt a sizable earthquake before, so when the house and my bed started shaking, the panic started to rise fast. What I experienced then, and always in subsequent seismic events, is the suspension of your perception of everything except the tremors. My mind narrowed down to a complete focus on one question: is the shaking increasing? Or decreasing? It's like time stops and all you can concentrate on is whether things are getting better for worse. I heard dishes rattling in the cupboards and objects rattling on the bookshelves. Because my bed was a futon on the floor, it felt like I was on a raft in the ocean that was being buffeted by waves."

"It came at 4:32 in the morning and woke me up. I've lived all my life in the same house in West L.A., and this was the worst shaker I've been in. Shaking, each hit less than a half-second from the previous one, as if someone with a giant maul (wooden hammer) were hitting my home from beneath. I arose, dressed, removed toppled bookcases that blocked some doors, fetched one of my two Coleman gasoline lanterns, lit it and proceeded to try to help my neighbors. Power was out for eight hours, and the ground quivered repeatedly. I'd already been keeping emergency supplies on-hand, emergency lighting, and, of course, my camping gear. Before that earthquake, I was well prepared for such things, and I've continued to be so."

"I was grateful that my 2-year-old daughter, my then-husband and I were alive. During the quake, I didn’t think we would be. Our house had cracks, dishes and glassware were smashed, but we never had to leave the house. But every aftershock terrified me... It felt like Godzilla was trying to violently uproot our house from its foundation."

"We were in a remote stretch of desert and had to get home. We turned on the news on a tiny antenna TV that we had there. Without cell phones and GPS and social media, we were plotting our route back home, knowing it would be a long, slow drive with potential aftershocks. The image of the collapsed 10 Freeway loomed in the possibility of a dangerous journey. ... And because there was no phone at the site, we had no way to talk to anyone at home to find out how bad it had been there. We drove 40 miles to the city of Mojave to get to a pay phone; I don't know if we were able to get through at that point. ... For years, I kept shoes upside-down next to my bed, with a flashlight. I should probably do that again. We started tying cabinet doors together (and untying/retying them every time we needed a plate). We've always been pretty good about keeping emergency supplies on-hand, so just making sure we were stocked and constantly rotating and refreshing supplies."

"Very rocky for a very long time. My husband was very nervous about earthquakes, so I put my arm over him to help calm him. He woke with a start and was hollering and I was telling him it was gonna be okay and I felt like two cartoon characters clinging to one another and hollering until it stopped. The old place really shook. Far more than I ever had felt before. ...We went on the porch and checked in with all the neighbors then went in to clean up. I remember a lot of Chicken Tonight jars being broken! But that was really all we lost. My folks up higher in La Crescenta didn't even wake up! Later my head hurt and I felt a bump on my forehead — I realized by reaching over my husband to help calm him he ended up head-butting me when he woke up!"

"... The earthquake damaged almost all of the buildings in the Santa Monica school district so badly that we were out of school for quite a long time afterwards, and the following school year started later in September to give the district more time to do repairs. I spent the rest of the school year and the following year in a portable classroom. ... My parents made sure to drill emergency preparedness into me after the earthquake, and I don’t go anywhere without an emergency kit. I keep one in my bedroom and in my car, and I’ve carried that with me even when I’ve lived in other states."

"It was exactly like a freight train was coming through the wardrobe beside the bed. Huge rocking, shaking, loud! We had only minor damage to our apartment building; only a few buildings were red tagged around me. But it certainly reminded us all that L.A. is serious earthquake country. The general assumption from then on was 'a big shake can come at any time' and so it was more that mental shift than anything else. I lived for a while in a house that was far from quake-proof, and I recently sold it to live for a while in a new apartment building with the latest codes. The idea is to hopefully live through The Big One!"

"I woke up to what I thought was a storm. A very aggressive storm that was shaking the house? OK, if the explosions on light outside aren't lightning, what are they? Are we under attack? My two parents and sister all met in my room, and we got out as quickly as possible. The 'lightning' turned out to be the power lines being ripped away from the poles, and components exploding. ... We slept in our Volvo station wagon and family van in the front yard for a few weeks. I also took all the heavy objects off the shelves above my bed. I have a small emergency kit here in my (apartment), and one in my car. We'll see how well the building I live in stands up to the shaking."