Earth shaking news

[altivo]

Or not. Today was all a-dither here in northern Illinois about the horrible, scary earthquake that hit just before 4 am this morning. I listened silently to several accounts of how frightening it was, and read several more online. All I can think is that this reaction must have been occasioned by bad dreams about the Haiti quake of last month,

Comments

[cabcat]

I thought they didn't use the Richter scale anymore and that's just a thing the media use after it was superceeded by the Moment Magnitude Scale.

Sounds like it just triggered people's inate fears rather than anything important. My first earthquake which I felt while visiting my Grandparents in a suburb of Tokyo just felt like a low flying jet. I was in bed at the time which had something to do with how I felt it.

Yahoo has something similar to Buzz but I don't bother with it either :)

[chibiabos]

It should be a reminder, else we get a Haiti. No one believes a quake is coming for a couple centuries, then of course no buildings are made to withstand one.

[altivo]

I'd say there's a lot more likelihood of a major hurricane flattening Miami Beach than of an earthquake knocking down buildings in Chicago or Manhattan. ;p

No one has done anything about the unsafe construction in Florida hurricane zones or the houses rebuilt again and again on Mississippi River flood plains, so getting them to spend money on earthquake protection is extremely unlikely.

[chibiabos]

I won't argue about the likeliness of anything being done, but No, it is not true that Chicago or New York will never have a flattened building. In fact, both New York Chicago will experience serious earthquakes and unless they have strong earthquake standards in every single building (which I doubt), buildings will get knocked down by those earthquakes.

I'm a bit surprised you of all people would make such an ignorant statement, Altivo. The Midwest has experienced very large earthquakes that have literally changed the landscape. The piece of the state of Missouri where New Madrid is, for instance, has its unique geopolitical boundaries due to a significant earthquake that radically altered the course of a boundary river. The New Madrid earthquakes were felt from New Orleans into Canada and themselves are a threat to the Chicago area despite how far they seem.

It may not be particularly likely that it will happen tomorrow, but those areas have been hit by very serious earthquakes and, sooner or later, they will again.

[deffox]

I didn't feel a thing from your last quake. Maybe being 1300 miles away had something to do with it.

I did feel a similar quake from Illinois several years back. Though where I was in Wisconsin it was only in the 1.8-2.0 range. It felt like a truck driving down the road when there wasn't.

As for the internet tapeworm Google, I virtually boycott them. I've had enough of their lack of respect for privacy. Some things like their 'Docs' have user agreements that are jaw-dropping bad.

[altivo]

Illinois quakes are usually of the sort where people don't even realize it's a quake if it hits in the daytime when there's traffic on the roads and construction and all that other activity going on. It's when they come in the wee hours of the morning as this one did that they cause a panic. Apparently the 911 lines were swamped in South Elgin. As if they had anything to actually call in about, people who were shaken awake called 911 to ask what was going on instead of turning on their radio or television.

[quetico]

This is Illinois, for crying out loud. If I wanted to shake involuntarily I'd move to the West coast. Suddenly flat ole Illinois got all these little faults.
Nobody said anything about Earthquakes when I signed up for this cruise.

[altivo]

We have earthquakes here regularly. Most are so small that people never notice, or they think it's a passing truck or sonic boom. This is the third significant one I recall in the 30 years I've lived here. I didn't recognize any of them as quakes at the time, though.