Hey droski, something I know we'll agree upon, brother...

I suppose it depends how big it is and near the epicenter you are. The one my wife experienced was an 8.0, which might unnerve me, although she was a decent amount of distance from the epicenter.

I'm still terrified of the asteroid/tsunami combo most of all.

 

Isn't the east Tennessee fault miles down? That is why when we get quakes here (had one two years ago) it is mostly a loud rumble and shake of the house.

The one out west near Memphis is deep, too, but BIG. When that thing breaks, it changes the landscape.

The one in California is up on the surface and so when it even slightly budges, you feel it. But I am no geologist, just as in all things, a sponge for useless trivia and would not doubt I am wrong in what I am saying.

 

I sleep in a gyroscope. No worries.

 

8.0 would be pretty terrifying. Only one that really freaked me out was the northridge one here. Felt like they threw the house against a wall. I still knew I was going to survive though

 

We had a small earthquake down here in alabama that woke me up one morning. My first one was a small one in Clarksville,TN as a kid.

 

If that was the one ten years ago or so, I had the same experience. Loud as all get out like the whole house was buzzing.

 

That was it. I sat straight up in the bed trying to figure out why the room appeared to be shaking.

 

Same here. My wife woke up and asked what should we do after I told her that no, the sound she heard was not of my doing.

 

In California, sure. When a big one occurs on the New Madrid, the casualties will be in the tens of thousands. California has engineered buildings to withstand them. Same with Chile. Places like Haiti, or Memphis? Not prepared.

 

My house was built in 1959 and has survived two major earthquakes just fine. They've bolted the foundation, but that's all the earthquake retrofit that has been done. Memphis would be just fine as would any American city as long as it isn't made out of brick. Haiti and chile have a bunch of shacks. Their building standards aren't close to America. I agree earthquake building standards help, but most of them are laws other states already have on the books.

 

Chile is fine, that is what I am saying.


The buildings that killed people in Haiti were concrete. Memphis will not be fine. It will be the Autozone Headquarters all alone in a field of rubble. The underlying substrate of Memphis is loose alluvium and loess. That stuff is going to rock and roll.

 

Most of Southern California is a liquidification zone

 

liquefaction? Yes, I know. The fine particles of glacial loess is finer than the Los Angeles River alluvium underlying much of the LA area.

 

Also lots of landfill

 

Which has been horrible for San Francisco. Landfill is mostly commercial real estate in LA.

 

my dad has asteroids. Can't even sit on the toilet some days