Quake!

Quake

Got woke up this morning by an earthquake. Just one of the fringe benefits you get for living in California.

This one took place at 8:41 a.m. and the epicenter was located six miles east of Anza Borrego in the desert northeast of San Diego. (I stayed there overnight once.)

I checked, and the quake was centered 56 miles from where I live, and the quake was strong enough to wake me up–not surprising if you look at the map above and discern from the big red box that the magnitude of the quake was in the 5 range.

In fact, it was 5.6. It only lasted a few seconds (at least the shaking here, 56 miles away, only lasted that long), but it was violent enough that my bed and my whole bedroom wobbled so forcefully that it snatched me, protesting, from a dream.

CHECK OUT THE RECENT QUAKE TOOL I USED TO GET THE ABOVE MAP.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

14 thoughts on “Quake!”

  1. I had no clue there was an earthquake till I got home and a family member had asked me if I felt it. He said he saw the walls sway. By the way I’m in northern San Diego county
    I think it must have happened when we were coming out of Mass and if it did I can’t help but think my parish has some great structural integrity to not have felt that one
    Amazing it was felt all over Southern California.

  2. I’m in south OC, and I felt it. Wasn’t very strong though, my first thought that a wall or something collapsed at the construction next door.

  4. I could barely feel it in central OC. I knew it was fairly far away as their was a gentle rolling motion. From experience, the closer to the epicenter you are, the more “jolting” the motion is.

  5. Felt it really good here in Mid-Wilshire Los Angeles. I thought one of the cats had jumped on the bed but…no cat! The motion continued so I got to the doorway.
    Then I called my roommate at work and asked if he felt it…of course not!

  6. The tornadoes in Texas don’t scare me a bit.
    Earthquakes though?! You guys in CA are brave, I’d be quivering under the bed! lol

  7. Hope you don’t get the Big One Jimmy.
    We have regulsar shakes where I live – every few months we get little mag.3 babies.
    Last big one was about 18 years ago – mag 7 or thereabouts, and caused a bit of a problem – like about 20 houses destroyed, 10 ft. buckle in railway lines, 8′ earth shift for a few miles – but it was mainly in a rural area disrupting farms, and small towns where there are mainly single dwellings and not much industry,that’s why the Aussies call NZ the Shaky Isles – but you get to live with it as I’m sure many of you guys in CA do, but its always in the back of yours mind – the Big One.
    We also have several active volcanoes within a couple of hundred miles just to add to the excitement/interest.

  8. Large magnitude quakes are more likely to occur in areas that sit on plate subduction zones, such as Washington State or Alaska (also resulting in lots of volcanic activity)… not California so much, which does not sit on a subduction zone. However, because of the poor ground constitution (basically sediment) and horribly ancient architecture in most large California cities (like Los Angeles), even a moderate quake can inflict a lot of damage. I think Jimmy is in one of the safer locations in California.

  10. “Got woke up at 8:41!”
    I was thinking about commenting on it in my first post. Jimmy, what kind of hours do you keep if you are asleep at 8:41 in the morning? Are you some sort of night-owl?

  11. People often ask where I got the background I have in theology, biblical studies, etc.
    University of Insomnia. Department of Late Night Studies.

  12. My Marine son is stationed at China Lake, CA. I have no idea where this is, except it’s in the desert somewhere. Can anyone tell me if it’s in the affected area?
    Pardon my ignorance but I’m in Chicago, where we get tornado warnings but no earthquakes.

  14. : )
    cheeky of me, sorry.
    I figure getting all excited about earthquakes in California is like freaking out over Hurricanes in Florida… Hey, you don’t have to live there… you can always move somewhere else.
    I don’t usually bother much with quakes under 6.0 and I’ve gotten pretty good at guessing the size.
    The last big quake I was in was the Ash Wednesday 2001 Seattle (Nisqually) quake… 6.8 on the ol’ Richter scale. I was in my car sitting on the ferry dock and as we were shaking side to side, I noticed air under both right tires of the car ahead of me.

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