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August 24, 2014

American Canyon quake
Posted by Teresa at 06:37 AM * 23 comments

Are the Californians okay? How was your earthquake?

Comments on American Canyon quake:
#1 ::: D. Potter ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 07:16 AM:

Woke me up. And then kept a'rolling. Nothing seems to have fallen over and the water's still running.

USGS at first had a small dot at the location, but by the time I'd finished the Did You Feel It? Report, the dot was much bigger.

The word "magnitude" refused to come to mind.

I miss sleep.

#2 ::: Terry Karney ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 07:18 AM:

I'm trying to check with my friends.

#3 ::: sherwood Smith ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 09:58 AM:

It was a medium-high up north, which means unfelt down here. (Though it can be a warning if it was near the San Andreas that we are next.)

#4 ::: Jonathan Adams ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 11:51 AM:

It woke me up out of a sound sleep, kept shaking for a short while, then stopped (I'm in SF, which is fairly far from the epicenter). No damage to anything. I filed a "Did you feel it?" report with the USGS, e-mailed my wife (who was in a plane over the Atlantic on the way to London) to make sure she knew things were okay, and went back to sleep.

Ends up, they mentioned the earthquake over the PA when she landed a couple hours later, so it was a good thing I'd emailed...

#5 ::: Serge Broom ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 12:16 PM:

Based on what I read by my friend Yoko, and by Madeleine Robins and Elizabeth Lynn, people are ok.

#6 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 12:21 PM:

My sister (in San Pablo) and my brother (in Davis) would have noticed. USGS is calling it R6.1 now, which is 'moderate' - for values of 'moderate' that can include having adrenaline going from 0 to 100 in about two seconds.

For those who want them, the gory details are here. It's a strike-slip quake.

#7 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 01:40 PM:

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/08/24/quake-rolls-through-bay-area/ KQED reports 4 mobile homes destroyed by fire (hydrants out), 3 major injuries, other damage.

#8 ::: Don Simpson ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 03:13 PM:

Here in the SF Bay Area, a few seconds of mild shaking. Friends up near Napa had stuff falling over and power outage. The map is currently showing a few dozen much smaller quakes clustered around the first one.

#9 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 03:40 PM:

Woke us up in Berkeley, but no effects other than that. The cat was less perturbed than the humans.

#10 ::: Madeleine Robins ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 03:42 PM:

All okay here in San Francisco. I'm not quite certain if it was the quake itself that woke me, or Emily (the dog) being restive and anxious before. And then it quaked for about 30 seconds, and then it stopped. Not too much shaking, but the worst I've experienced in the 10+ years we've been out here. And of course, when it's happening, you don't know if it's going to shake for a minute or five, or if what seemed not-too-bad is just the precursor to really-awful.

I remain resolute in my belief that you hire the Earth to be steady. Perhaps I forgot to send a check.

#11 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 04:37 PM:

I was awake in Sunnyvale when the waves rolled by.

It didn't register as "quake" right away, but as a few seconds of "odd, why am I feeling shaky?" until B. called out "it's a quake!"

It reminded me of the 1989 quake: in both cases I was far enough from the epicenter to feel it as multiple incoming waves, each coming from the same direction. A closer earthquake comes straight up.

#12 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 04:45 PM:

I spent all last week either in St. Helena (only a little ways north of American Canyon) or Moraga (south across water, and east) but returned to Houston yesterday and so just missed it. My brother is apparently without electricity, but no serious damage to his house or to my dad's house or winery.

#13 ::: Avram ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 05:54 PM:

Some people seem to be coping pretty well.

#14 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 06:47 PM:

I slept through it down in Mountain View (town north of Sunnyvale, an hour and a half or so away from Napa.) My wife says she was awake during the quake and one or two aftershocks, but wasn't certain it was a quake because it startled the large cat sleeping on the bed so it could have been him jumping.

Silver Oaks Winery up in Napa tweeted a picture of lots of bottles of wine fallen onto their cellar floor.

#15 ::: Dori ::: (view all by) ::: August 24, 2014, 07:30 PM:

We're in Sonoma County, about 40 miles northwest of the epicenter. Tom & I were still awake, and it felt both strong and lengthy here. Thankfully, no harm or damage outside of a lot of shaking.

Yay for strong earthquake-resistant building codes!

#16 ::: Heather Rose Jones ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 01:10 AM:

A friend of mine in Napa had some broken crockery. I had the foresight to be up in the northern end of the state (Arcata) this weekend, so I only learned about it on Twitter after the fact.

#17 ::: Josh Berkus ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 01:38 AM:

Nice rolling motion, sustained shaking, but a bit heavy on the spilled wine. I give it 4 out of 5.

#18 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 02:36 AM:

Oh, good. Glad to hear you got off lightly.

#19 ::: Lizzy L ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 12:09 PM:

Nothing like a bit of rolling and rocking at 3 dark thirty to keep one sharp. I woke up thinking "Ah, earthquake. Is this the big one?" Watched the walls jiggle and sway. My little house in San Pablo absorbed the shock well. One picture was knocked askew; other than that, no effect. The car alarms stayed quiet. My dog was unconcerned. The slippage occurred on what folks had been calling a "dormant" fault. Note: there are no dormant faults, just faults that haven't slipped within our very short collective memory.

#20 ::: MJ ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 12:33 PM:

A friend in Santa Rosa, north of the epicenter, was up because her dog started barking before she felt the shaking. It went on long enough that she thought they should get out of the house, but then she saw lightning and decided to stay inside. However, lightning is rare here and we weren't having that kind of weather. Turns out it was earthquake lightning, which is some kind of atmospheric response the the seismic activity. She's glad to have seen it.

Here in Oakland, south of the epicenter, it was clearly a big quake somewhere because it lasted unusually long, but by the time I'd decided maybe I should get out of bed and under something, it had begun to abate.

#21 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 01:10 PM:

My sister sent ma a picture from somewhere on FB, of kids skateboarding on a street with seriously buckled pavement. They're clearly having fun.

#22 ::: B. Durbin ::: (view all by) ::: August 25, 2014, 08:39 PM:

My sister in Novato had no damage. It's all been pretty localized and mostly historic buildings and winery storage.

#23 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: September 02, 2014, 07:44 PM:

Lizzy L@19, dormant faults are the ones that slip when we're asleep.

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