Thursday, May 21, 2009

Shake, Rumble, and Jolt

The old song says: shake, rattle, and roll, but instead of that we experienced a shake, rumble, and jolt here in the Los Angeles area last Sunday evening. The earth moved, the cat jumped, the building shook, I was frozen on the couch, then a big jolt ended it all. My first thought was: WOW! That felt stronger than the Northridge earthquake of 1994. Next thing I did was go on the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website to find out where the epicenter was. It said Lennox with an initial intensity of 5.0 which was later revised to 4.7. Not much reaction from my neighbors since the electricity, gas, water, and phones were still working. So I check around my condo and saw that a couple of my emergency flashlights have fallen on the floor and under the couch. I wouldn't have found them if the electricity went out. In the bedroom, I have a huge old analog 43 inch TV on top of a stand which was near the foot of my bed. It had moved about an inch forward on the TV stand. I always feared that this TV would fall during an earthquake and if Sunday's jolt was any stronger, I think the TV would have fallen. I have to get myself a smaller TV for the bedroom. I really don't need a huge TV in there. I opened the cupboards in the kitchen and although nothing was broken, some plastic containers had moved about and fell out. When I opened the refrigerator, I couldn't open the door all the way, the oven door was blocking it, so I had to push the fridge back a couple of inches. There was a 4.0 rolling aftershock on Tuesday but it didn't affect anything here. So there it is, it seems like we survived this one without much damage. Gotta read up on that emergency plan again so we know how to react if worst things happen.

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