Yup, that was an earthquake outside SF
earthquake.usgs.govThe entirety of SoMa and Mission Bay are liquefaction zones [1], expected to face major damage during the next major earthquake.
I wonder if "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" really is good advice for liquefaction zones for a very big earthquake.
[1] https://gis.data.ca.gov/datasets/b70a766a60ad4c0688babdd4749...
Covering doesn’t do too much (in the moment) to stop a building coming down, but it def helps stop heavy objects from concussing or worse. For those in the Bay Area, Cal academy of sciences has a nifty simulator exhibit. For everyone else, just watch a few YouTube videos of how violently and abruptly everything not bolted down becomes a projectile.
It’s been so long since we’ve had strong seismic activity in the Bay Area that I’d wager most that have moved here in past two decades (hi!) don’t have all their bookshelves/etc bolted to the wall, breakables secured with quake-hold, shoes under bed, etc… not to mention proper supplies for significant infrastructure damage. I know I caught myself being complacent earlier this year after I reorganized all of our stemware and whisky/etc to a glass cabinet next one of our two exit paths. It would have been an a guaranteed 20-30 lbs of glass shards thoroughly blocking that path. But hey, I’ll admit I have cinema-induced-paranoia about two things: 1) being trapped barefoot with glass covered floors, and 2) potential for velociraptor ingress.
Don’t forget the quicksand, which could be a real thing in this case.
My experience (from the Christchurch earthquakes in 2010-2011) was that "wait and see if it's a big one" is what most people are more likely to do.
> Drop, Cover, and Hold On
The only people who believe this advice haven't been in an earthquake or government workers who have to justify their existence by coming up with such nonsense, you know, like all the "don't do drugs" messaging and whatever they hand out at the DMV.
The last large quake I experienced was the Northridge quake. I lived very near to the epicenter at the time. It was 4:31 AM. I remember exactly because stayed up all night coding. I felt a strong tug. I immediately thought "this is a big one".
Next image I have in my head was me floating four feet up in the air and all my books up in the air with me (I had bookcases full of books on three walls). The lights went out, we fell to the ground and the powerful shaking started. When it all stopped, books covered the entire floor, it was a mess.
Floating four feet up in the air?
Yes!
The quake had a very strong vertical component. As it pushed up, it compressed the air cylinder right under me (part of the desk chair). That cylinder and the reversal of motion was enough to launch me vertically. My cars were launched into the air and collided with each other...on the driveway. The whole thing was insane.
"Drop, cover and hold on"? Yeah, right.
Don't get me wrong, running around like a maniac isn't smart at all. Keep your wits about you, stand under a doorway or something with decent structural support and assess from there. That is, if you are able to. Sometimes, as was the cased with Northridge, you don't have time for anything. People had entire buildings collapse onto them while in bed.
Question: An earthquake can be dangerous because it is long lasting or because it is short and especially violent. So my question is, are earthquakes usually a consistent intensity? Or can they be moderate intensity for 45 seconds and then flatten me with a pulse that makes me experience 3x my body weight?
They are generally not a consistent intensity during the event. Yes, it can be moderate for a bit and then more intense shortly later. There are several different waves that move at different speeds from the earthquakes epicenter and which decay at different rates relative to distance from the epicenter. One categorization is P, S, and surface wave. The time of arrival of each wave and their intensities depend on many variables. I think it is possible for the later arrival to be much larger and more destructive than the first, but I'm a bit hazy on the details.
https://science8sc.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/2/7/132773018/publ...
Anecdote, I was in a small earthquake in Tokyo, the initial thump woke me up and I rolled over under the dining table (sleeping on the floor as a guest) then the bigger vibrations arrived a few seconds later. The building was well designed for earthquakes, but in the moment I figured that, not knowing how big the rest of the earthquake will be, it was probably best to get cover anyway. I think cover is just about increasing the probability by some small amount that you could end up alive under the rubble if the building were to collapse.
Length of the earthquake is proportional to its strength.
I really do not understand how creatures like humans who can understand and plan for things build cities in flood zones, wildfire zones, earthquake zones, below sealevel, etc.
It's not like the death of the sun or heat death of universe where it's a billion years outside of your lifetime, it's going to happen in your lifetime.
The "oh well what can you do" response leads me to believe we aren't going to do a damn thing about runaway climate change.
Your commute happens about 250 days every year. A big earthquake happens maybe once ever 30 years. Buying a house takes 30 years to pay off. There's a limited supply of land; if all the houses in safe zones are taken, it may be worth it to some people to roll the dice on a house with natural hazards that's cheaper yet still close to everything. They're optimizing for the common case.
I’ve lived in blizzard territory and tornado alley. I have friends in hurricane zones. Parts of the US want to cook you alive. There’s nowhere in the country without something or another trying to kill you.
Michigan is pretty safe. We get tornados but that's about it. Not much poisonous or dangerous wildlife besides bears - just stay out of the wilderness.
Not to mention a huge supply of fresh water.
> Michigan is pretty safe.
> We get tornados but that's about it.
those two things seem at odds.
Haha. I should say "other areas" in Michigan - 35 years here and I've never seen one with my own eye besides some ambiguous scary looking clouds.
Crippling boredom
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
Winter probably kills more people than earthquakes.
It's a slow danger most of the time. People have time to prepare or leave. Earthquakes are very sudden.
...and surprisingly non-lethal, at least for the M6.5-7ish earthquakes in developed countries, similar to what would hit SF.
Loma Prieta killed 63 people. Northridge killed 57. The 2011 Christchurch earthquake killed 185. By contrast, about 30 people die every year from cold, 134 from heat, 44 from being hit by lightning, 85 from flooding, 69 from tornadoes [1], 103 from mass shootings, 21K from gun-related homicide, 26K from gun-related suicide [2], 70K from fentanyl [3], and 280K from obesity [4]. For completeness, excluding 9/11 about 15 people die per year from terrorism [5], with median 2 and mode 0.
Note the 3-order-of-magnitude difference between headline-worthy deaths like natural disasters and terrorism, vs. slow dangers like homicide, suicide, overdose, or obesity. You're about 7 times more likely to die from being struck by lightning than an earthquake.
[1] https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Which-Kills-More-People-Ex...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-...
[3] https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...
[4] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192032
[5] https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths...
Don't forget high deserts! You can get snowed in, drowned in a flood, cooked alive and then run down by a 30 mile an hour fire storm all in the same day if you're lucky!
I’m always amused by Americans (and I am one) who think our weather is so great, when we actually have the worst overall weather on Earth.
Some parts of the US have some of the nicest weather in the world. Say, Santa Barbara or San Diego.
San Francisco has a reputation for being cold. It’s just that we have the air conditioning running all the time. It’s basically sunny, low of 55°, high of 72°, year round. Twice a year it’ll get cold. A week a year it’ll get hot.
It’s the best weather anywhere to show off your nice jacket.
SF is foggy or cloudy like half the days of the year
There are nice spots on the coasts.
Some humans do, at least. I've read about there being stones in lakes or rivers that basically say "btw if you see this stone, you're as fucked as we were in the year 300AD" or something.
And in Japan there's those old stone marker monuments telling people not to build below them because of tsunamis or floods or something to that effect.
But I mean I guess when it's as desirable property as the SF Bay Area, the fact that you lose the building on it every hundred years or so is a small price to pay?
It seems everyone in this thread is forgetting humans only live 100 years.
If an event happens every 250 years on average - thats 10 generations of humans.
There are stories told by old Indigenous peoples in Canada and the Western USA about the Cascadia Fault which will wreck the PNW west of Interstate 5, estimated to happen every 500 years, last happened in 1700s. But they are just that - vague stories. Who is listening to them?
If 10 generations of a family can live in one spot for 250 years with no issues - it might be pretty hard to convince them they have to leave.
If you’re bored, checkout renderings/maps of California during the Great Flood of 1862! My favorite trivia about that event was that the native Americans warned the settlers and relocated their villages to the hills just prior to the atmospheric rivers. If memory serves, Meteorologists / Atmospheric Scientists didn’t even have a name for them until the 1990s.
With the increasing frequency of “100 year storm”, “200 year fire”, “250 year flood” … it’s pretty unfortunate we’re so terrible at contextualizing event types that haven’t already directly impacted our own lives. Of course paranoia-prepping isn’t really useful, but it’s dumbfounding that preparation isn’t a given.
I'll check it out, thanks!
It is pretty unfortunate, but I don't blame people. Imagine your grandfather telling you stories about his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather dealing with a great flood... they would just be legends.
The “hunger stones” https://heritagetribune.eu/europe/morbid-medieval-messages-a...
Some of those zones aren't static. Some of those zones are discovered after people have made a life there and getting people to leave an area where they've made a life is hard.
If you live somewhere with strong earthquakes on a regular basis and enforcable building codes, chances are most of the buildings will withstand a pretty good earthquake, but a really big one will cause trouble.
Areas without regular strong earthquakes are likely to be caught by surprise, although newer buildings are likely to do ok, if they enforce international standard building codes; IBC is good for reasonable earthquakes, but not for extreme earthquakes (earthquake prone areas have additional requirements). Areas without enforcable building codes unfortunately aren't going to be well prepared, it costs more to build buildings that won't fall over in a nearby 4.0, especially if they're taller than one story.
It's too abstract.
Person is good at planning for abstract problems, because person controls their income, expenses, and priorities.
People are terrible at planning for abstract problems because it's collective resources and collective solutions requiring agreement from multiple parties who, inherently, have different and often conflicting priorities.
In other words, until the planet crashes and kills a vast, vast majority of us, we are going to carry on like we always have. It's depressing.
Even if it does happen in your lifetime. Do not underestimate the power of convenience.
https://99percentinvisible.org/article/tsunami-stones-ancien...
>I really do not understand
money money money, MONEY! seems pretty simple to me
Well, it usually beats homelessness or rent slavery.
What's the alternative? Drop cover and hold on at least avoids injury from attempting to move on an unexpectedly moving surface.
When the ground stops moving, then you have a chance at purposeful motion.
One alternative might be “run as fast as you fucking can towards Potrero Hill” if you are close enough to be able to make progress towards it.
There's really two scenarios there. Either the earth is moving enough that run as fast as you can is zero mph, because the earth is moving a lot or you could move rather quickly and so there's not much need to move.
If you're in an immediately hazardous area, you should move to nearby safety during the earthquake (getting away from kitchens, window, things that could fall on you, etc), but exiting a building during an earthquake is probably riskier than staying inside it.
Certainly, use the time of the shaking to plan your exit, but no sense in falling all over the place and risking avoidable injury.
If you're in the bay area, chances are the building you're in is fairly earthquake safe. Building codes have improved over time, and many of the most unsafe buildings were destroyed in previous large earthquakes. Small buildings tend to be fairly safe even if not up to current codes, and large buildings tend to be targetted by inspection and retrofit requirements.
Great advice for those already outside, away from structures, and already at Potrero hill
That’s a sure recipe for “faceplant the earth every 2 seconds”.
When the earth moves 2m each way every second there’s no way you can stay on your feet. Maybe you could crawl?
Great advice, if you’re The Flash.
3.7 barely qualifies as an earthquake though.
I've seen it written as 4.1 or 4.0, seems like they're revising that with more data.
It punched above its weight because the epicenter was closer to San Francisco than usual.
Are you the guy from Chicago that tells everyone "this isn't cold ya wimps, I know real cold"?
Let people have their moments together, they don't need you to approve it
That’s a pretty small earthquake for California. You’ll feel a 5.x but it doesn’t get much more than a passing blurb in the local news when it happens. Everything there is built for earthquakes, the damage doesn’t start until you get to the 6.x range.
It was so close to SF that it was much more apparent than other earthquakes. For me, this was the most noticeable earthquake in SF this year.
Yeah, it was longer and stronger than any other quake I recall feeling living in various parts of California for over 10 years. Felt stronger than the one that got an emergency alert sent out in the past week (2?).
Same here —- was shorter than the last one this year though.
The "earthquake scene" from LA Story applies to all of California.
I think The City felt it more than usual because it was centered near SFO. Most earthquakes we feel are higher magnitude but further away. Commonly NE of Berkeley.
Even at this 3.9ish we had a few things fall off shelves :)
I was lying down and felt it. Wasn't enough to get me up though as these small ones aren't uncommon.
I suppose I should earthquake proof my apartment though, you know those twist tie things that come with some furniture that are meant to be anchored into the wall? I've never used 'em.
At some point with a big one I'll have some shelving and what not fall over. But I've been over a decade here and I haven't needed them yet.
Those are usually to prevent furniture falling on to children if they were to climb it, etc.
At minimum it'll save you from having to buy a new TV. Big LCD panels are pretty fragile.
TIL
Looks like the epicenter was 13.1 kilometers directly below SFO (San Francisco International Airport, which is south of San Francisco).
Updated magnitude is 3.7.
In Oakland, I felt it more significantly than any other earthquake in a while.
It got my attention in Alameda.
Fellow Alamedan here, same. I was surprised it was across the Bay.
Yeah, I figured it was in Hayward or maybe Berkeley.
Oh? I thought it was the implosion of X, formerly known as Twitter.
3.7 does not do anything.