LA Earthquake Felt in San Diego
There was a 4.7 earthquake in LA tonight. It occurred at 8:39pm local time. I actually felt there earthquake further south here in San Diego county...
What's odd was that I was feeling strange before the earthquake. At 8:30pm at night, I'm normally wide awake. This is the prime time of my day when I'm up and have the most energy. Tonight, I couldn't explain it. I felt so incredibly fatigued and weighed down, and so drained of energy that I considered laying down for a nap. I debated doing so for a good 15 minutes or so before I eventually gave up. I was in the process of shutting my computer down when the earthquake struck.
I first heard a noise above me. The ceiling was creaking. The master bedroom is above me and I can sometimes tell when someone is moving upstairs. This sounded different, though, as it sounded more like things were dropping on different parts of the floor above. In that same moment, my eyes darted to the lamp to my left. It was shaking. Nothing going on upstairs should cause my lamp to shake and as I watched the light sway, I started to realize it was an earthquake. I sat up in my chair in the next moment, reacting to the shaking at it grew stronger. I heard the creaking in the ceiling seem to continue, but now throughout the entire house. Lastly, the rolling hit. All this happened in a matter of 3 seconds, boom... boom... boom... the quake ended with the rolling and I had my arms out on my desk feeling it. It was like there was a rug under my chair and it was moving back and forth. I counted about ten seconds and it gradually died down.
That was a good quake! I immediately checked the news, saw LA felt it, and knew right away that the quake must have come from LA. I knew that it was possibly bigger than what I just felt.
The initial report was 5.0, but that was later down graded to a 4.7 earthquake by the USGS.
People started to report light damage. News crews raced to south central LA, heading towards Long Beach. Reports of store fronts with blown out windows were coming in. There were reports of gas leaks and ceiling tiles falling on people in a movie theater. The only report of injuries I saw were someone complaining of back pain and people cutting their feet on glass.
It was a moderate quake. It wasn't a big one. It didn't collapse any buildings or freeways, but this was the very first quake I felt that I KNEW did some structural damage. It's weird knowing that something I felt, something that hit my house, actually did some real damage miles away and hurt people up north.
This quake didn't scare me. I became wide awake and all the fatigue I felt earlier was instantly gone. I jumped from news source to news source, looking for more information and to share what I felt. I thought it was amazing that I was in the next city over from LA and I felt it too. It wasn't as strong, but it was strong enough and lasted long enough to make you sit up and take notice.