Must be my Californian upbringing...
It's been quite some time since I posted anything on here at all. I guess I finally felt the journal-keeping bug again.
A bit about me, if you don't know me well: I grew up across the bay from San Francisco, CA. I was raised in earthquake country; the South Hayward faultline passes right by my hometown, and every year in school we did earthquake drills alongside our fire and lockdown drills. I've been through earthquakes often enough - that is to say, a generous estimate of once every year and a half or so? Most are hardly big enough to notice. The one in Napa this morning at 3:20 AM was the biggest I've ever experienced.
I've been through Napa before, and it's beautiful there. Wine country, historic towns, lovely California countryside. My hometown is some 70 miles south of there. So when the Napa quake hit here, it felt more like a boat than anything else. A steady, solid, but almost gentle swaying and rolling motion that had our whole house moving. I thought my shaky desk chair was just wobbling again at first. It woke my mother, and something light and small and metallic hit a hard floor or countertop downstairs somewhere, though we still haven't figured out what fell or where. My chandelier and the hanging lamp in our stairwell were swinging. My sister, who steadied herself in the doorway of her room, could feel the doorframe shifting. By the time I'd come downstairs, the worst of it was done. We were watchful, a bit exhilarated, but hadn't yet reached frightened. This was likely just our Californian upbringing, though - I promptly went online and enthusiastically described the event to three online friends of mine, one from Florida, two others from Australia. They were all concerned and asked, as they have before, how I can stand to live somewhere where the earth moves of it's own accord. I cracked a joke about California trying to rock me to sleep.
When I woke later this morning and turned on the news, I saw that Napa, the city nearest the epicenter, took the hit far harder. Several buildings took damage (mostly older historic ones that don't meet modern building codes) but as of now there are no reported collapses. Several homes have been damaged, mobile homes knocked off their foundations, and the pavement on a few roads has buckled and cracked. The worst damage seems to be broken water and gas mains, power outages, and some fires. So far there's no reported deaths and around 90 injuries, mostly minor. There's security footage from various buildings showing how bad the tremors were there, but I can tell you at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay it was nowhere near as powerful.
More than anything else, for me this event has resparked (as most earthquakes do) a fascination with our local geography and a love of Californian history. I truly love California, even when things like this ward many people away from visiting, let alone living here. I find I want to learn more about it's history, both natural and cultural. I want to learn more about earthquakes, and I want to know everything there is to know about California as a whole. I'm actually about to begin a physical geography course tomorrow at my local college, one of the first three classes I've taken after my year and a half long college hiatus, something I signed up for to cover a necessary science credit, but now, I've a more personal interest in it. Which is good, because I could use the motivation. I suppose most of all, I want to do something worthwhile. I am a part of history in the making; I want to leave something behind. Even if it's just a self-indulgent first hand account of the Napa earthquake.
...on a lighter note... True bred Californians, right here.
A bit about me, if you don't know me well: I grew up across the bay from San Francisco, CA. I was raised in earthquake country; the South Hayward faultline passes right by my hometown, and every year in school we did earthquake drills alongside our fire and lockdown drills. I've been through earthquakes often enough - that is to say, a generous estimate of once every year and a half or so? Most are hardly big enough to notice. The one in Napa this morning at 3:20 AM was the biggest I've ever experienced.
I've been through Napa before, and it's beautiful there. Wine country, historic towns, lovely California countryside. My hometown is some 70 miles south of there. So when the Napa quake hit here, it felt more like a boat than anything else. A steady, solid, but almost gentle swaying and rolling motion that had our whole house moving. I thought my shaky desk chair was just wobbling again at first. It woke my mother, and something light and small and metallic hit a hard floor or countertop downstairs somewhere, though we still haven't figured out what fell or where. My chandelier and the hanging lamp in our stairwell were swinging. My sister, who steadied herself in the doorway of her room, could feel the doorframe shifting. By the time I'd come downstairs, the worst of it was done. We were watchful, a bit exhilarated, but hadn't yet reached frightened. This was likely just our Californian upbringing, though - I promptly went online and enthusiastically described the event to three online friends of mine, one from Florida, two others from Australia. They were all concerned and asked, as they have before, how I can stand to live somewhere where the earth moves of it's own accord. I cracked a joke about California trying to rock me to sleep.
When I woke later this morning and turned on the news, I saw that Napa, the city nearest the epicenter, took the hit far harder. Several buildings took damage (mostly older historic ones that don't meet modern building codes) but as of now there are no reported collapses. Several homes have been damaged, mobile homes knocked off their foundations, and the pavement on a few roads has buckled and cracked. The worst damage seems to be broken water and gas mains, power outages, and some fires. So far there's no reported deaths and around 90 injuries, mostly minor. There's security footage from various buildings showing how bad the tremors were there, but I can tell you at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay it was nowhere near as powerful.
More than anything else, for me this event has resparked (as most earthquakes do) a fascination with our local geography and a love of Californian history. I truly love California, even when things like this ward many people away from visiting, let alone living here. I find I want to learn more about it's history, both natural and cultural. I want to learn more about earthquakes, and I want to know everything there is to know about California as a whole. I'm actually about to begin a physical geography course tomorrow at my local college, one of the first three classes I've taken after my year and a half long college hiatus, something I signed up for to cover a necessary science credit, but now, I've a more personal interest in it. Which is good, because I could use the motivation. I suppose most of all, I want to do something worthwhile. I am a part of history in the making; I want to leave something behind. Even if it's just a self-indulgent first hand account of the Napa earthquake.
...on a lighter note... True bred Californians, right here.