Rock and Roll, Mid-West Style…
One of the questions that people always ask me about living in California is, “Aren’t you afraid of earthquakes?” How do you answer that? I am not particularly “afraid” of anything, but I don’t hike in flat places in thunderstorms! I have experienced small quakes, and I have seen tornadoes on the ground. I respect tides, and I tend not to turn my back on ocean waves. I have a good, healthy respect for nature’s power, in all of its forms. I keep a button in my Safari bookmarks bar for Bay Area earthquakes.
So today I read about a magnitude 5.2 earthquake that was centered in southern Illinois and felt by folks as far as 400 miles away, in Georgia. It was the strongest quake there in 40 years. OK, there was precious little “news” at the link above. Maybe with news organizations all going to blog formats, we will start to recognize biases that have been there all along. How about our friends at the USGS (United States Geological Survey)? Less entertaining perhaps, but factual. USGS shows a magnitude 4.6 quake. I guess “5.2” is more impressive…, like gigahertz ratings.
(Update 04/19/2008: Peter from Chicago correctly points out that the 4.6 quake was an aftershock of the 5.2 quake in southern Illinois. I made the mistake of looking at the USGS “latest” quakes, rather than ALL of the quakes in the area. Aftershocks continue….)
My point is that earthquakes are (“darn near”) everywhere. In the Bay Area, the Hayward Fault is so dangerous because so many people live on top of it! Tornadoes are also very dangerous, and rare in the Bay Area. I once spoke with a friend of my wife’s who was officiating a track and field meet in Xenia, OH when tornadoes crisscrossed the town, during the Super Outbreak, the largest tornado outbreak ever reported for a 24-hour period. He said that he “liked Vietnam better.” (He was sent home from the War in Vietnam because of his wounds.) In Ohio, they tell you to cower, oops! “shelter” in the southwest corner of your basement when a tornado approaches. In the Bay Area of California, few homes are constructed with basements. It is good that tornadoes are relatively rare in the Bay Area, but they still occur here.
In my almost 20 years in California, I felt the 5.6-magnitude quake on the Calaveras Fault, a 3.5 quake from the third floor of an office building, and several other 3-something quakes. If you are holding off your visit to California because of earthquakes, don’t! At the same time, remember that our planet Earth is not a “safe” place to live, but it’s the only place that we have, for now. Let’s try to take better care of it.
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
Update 04/19/2008: To Peter in Chicago – Thank you for your kind comments and for reading this blog! Also, thank you for letting me know about this entry being featured on CNN.com! The referrals from CNN this week outnumbered the referrals from Google!
If you still are undecided about moving from Chicago (I remember one day when we drove through Chicago and the projected high temperature that January day was -7 degrees F, yes, that is a “minus”), to San Diego, I would like to refer you to my blog entry about my nephew’s wedding at sea off Point Loma in San Diego.
-Bill
You can view higher-resolution photos (*generally* 7-30 megabytes, compressed) at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. Apparel and other gifts decorated with some of our most popular photos can be ordered from the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Store on CafePress®.
First, great blog. In case you didn’t know it, this page is being featured at 5am today on CNN.Com at the following address.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/quake.irpt/index.html
Here’s me comments on the Illinois quakes. That’s right, two of them, 5.2 then as far as I can tell an unreported 4.6 hours later.
Thanks for not being one of those who complain about our earthquakes getting more attention than they “should”.
My Posts on the Illinois Earthquakes: The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Satire, Jokes Commentary and Videos
Your blog has really great photos. I need to get my own photo blog up, I just never take the time to set up a different blog for it, and do the uploading. Most of my free time is spent writing.
I think it is foolish to hold off a visit to California because of a fear of an earthquake, that’s like not visiting the midwest for fear of a tornado or Lake Michigan developing a Tsunami (theoretically possible but absurdly unlikely). You’re more likely to get hit by “blue ice” from an airplane.
Well, maybe not more likely, but, I digress.
As a Chicagoan, I guessed I would rather have winters than what I thought were Chicago’s chances of an earthquake. Even now, we are still purty darn far from the Missouri Fault line. But, given Chicago winters, I am starting to rethink my position on living in San Diego after yesterday!
Peter, Editor in Chief and Sun-Liker/EarthQuake Newbie
The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Satire, Jokes Commentary and Videos
ThePeterFilesBlogofComedy said this on April 19th, 2008 at 3:15 am