The Forums › Forums › Most X-treme! › Is It Just Me? › Am I really so inattentive that I missed an earthquake?
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August 24, 2011 at 2:17 am #89953
You know that earthquake today that rumbled through Virginia & D.C., and was felt as far away as Toronto and Ottawa? Well, I found out about it an hour later, when I’d finished my work and was reading the Toronto Star online.
Just as with the other 4 or 5 earthquakes over the past 20 years or so that supposedly could be felt around Toronto, I felt absolutely nothing. Not so much as a nudge.
Am I really THAT inattentive? If so, am I the only one around here who could miss an earthquake?
(I have a funny feeling that I’m not!)
REPORT ABUSEAugust 24, 2011 at 4:32 am #107685Earthquakes are funny things. Sometimes, if you are just in the right spot, you’ll either feel it or you won’t. I spent much of my life around the Pacific Rim, and have been through more than my share of earthquakes.
One time, during a 6.3 quake in CA, that hit just after the schoolday began, I was the only one not to feel it. I had no idea why people were getting up and leaving the classroom. I thought I just missed some fire drill announcement or something. When I got home, we noticed that the foundation of the house had actually moved!
Other times, I’ve felt it and few other people did. I felt one in my living room, with my friend, while my parents were entertaining in the dining room, and nobody there felt it. I’ve also felt one in the middle of the night and only a couple of people at my workplace felt it aside from me, even though it was above 5 on the scale.
More recently, there was an earthquake in Chicago, and my shelf fell down here in KS, although nobody here claims to have felt a thing. It’s a pretty solid shelf, so I’m not sure how else it got knocked down, and the time was just a few minutes after the rumble started in Chicago.
I’ve also felt very small tremors here in KS and OK, when I was there. Funny how I missed the biggest one I was ever in.
It’s weird like that. Kind of like how a tornado can totally demolish a house and leave a table with flowers untouched. Just a crazy thing, I guess.
No, it’s not your ADD. Can’t blame it for this one. I guarantee you, if you felt it, you wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Really, you were just in a very unusually stable spot.
REPORT ABUSEAugust 24, 2011 at 4:45 am #107686Well, if you live in Maryland (as I do) there was no missing it. People were screaming, and I thought the roof was going to cave in! No attention deficit whatsoever for about 30 seconds.
REPORT ABUSEAugust 25, 2011 at 2:02 am #107687
AnonymousInactiveAugust 25, 2011 at 2:02 amPost count: 14413I called my friend in Virginia yesterday about 5 minutes before the quake. We were chatting away, and all of a sudden she said “my house is really shaking!” I could hear it over the telephone, something was tapping and rattling. She lives near Roanoke, about 2 hrs from the epicentre. But north of Toronto, I didn’t feel anything. It didn’t even occur to me that we would feel the same quake!
REPORT ABUSEAugust 25, 2011 at 2:54 am #107688When I was in the 6.3, there was no screaming. Probably because Californians just know it’s an earthquake, and not likely to panic. There was lots of rumbling, but I really thought it was somebody messing around with the wall. They were those kind of walls that you see in cubicles, except they went to the ceiling. Very cheap.
I just missed it. It does happen, especially if you are in a spot that just doesn’t move. Ask a W. Coast person. Happens to the best of us, yet nothing to do with ADD. Can’t blame it on the ADD, just weird geological shifts.
Supposedly, the type of rock on the E. Coast contributed to it being felt far away. Nothing to do with strength, just rocks. I’m telling you, it’s just a strange world we live in/on.
REPORT ABUSEAugust 25, 2011 at 1:10 pm #107689
AnonymousInactiveAugust 25, 2011 at 1:10 pmPost count: 14413It really does depend on where you are and your sensitivity to such things. I was wondering why the dog suddenly got up and hid in the upstairs bathroom until I later heard of the report of the quake (I live in Massachusetts where some tremors were felt). Now it could have been that I was too immersed in what I was doing, or it could have been the roller coaster thundering by at 77mph every 2 minutes that caused me to miss it. Go fig.
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