So, it's been 20 years since the Northridge Quake. Do you remember where you were when it hit? I sure do. I was in bed. How about you?
The weird part of the experience for me was the odd feeling of dread I experienced at about 1 am. I had been in bed, watching TV. When I got up to turn the TV off I told my wife that I needed to move the TV to a better spot than on top of the dresser, because we were going to have a huge earthquake and it was going to fall off that dresser and break, and I was going to be a no-TV-in-the-bedroom so-and-so. I didn't necessarily think that the huge earthquake was just 3 1/2 hours away, but it seemed important enough to mention at the time.
At 4:31 a.m., when the quake woke me up, I jumped out of bed and ran to the dresser to hold on to my TV. I had books falling off the bookshelf above me and landing on my head and back, but I saved that TV.
I had friends whose experiences were much more troublesome. If you watch this CBS news item looking back at the quake (link), one of the guys interviewed was a buddy of mine. His place was pretty seriously messed up. Luckily, I was about 45 miles from the epicenter.
My kids, all born after the Northridge Quake, have never really experienced a frightening earthquake. The strongest we've felt since they were born was probably the 2010 Easter quake, which was very far from us. We all still remember the July 29, 2008 Chino Hills quake, but that was just a 5.5 shake. We also felt a little 3.6 the other night. That freaked the kids out a little bit, but it lasted all of about 2 seconds. The Northridge Quake was a 6.7 that lasted 20 seconds and was followed by a 6.0 aftershock a minute later. That's no Tōhoku quake, but that's a quake.
We're due for another biggie soon. Hopefully, we'll get through that one, too, without losing so much as a TV.
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