Page 1 of 2

Earthquake

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 1:13 pm
by Herm
I hope all of the members who live in and around the bay area are safe and sound after this morning's rather strong earthquake.

Cheers,
Herm

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 1:21 pm
by rlown
Napa proper took the hit; might want to move this to "beyond the Sierra".

It was a fun ~3am wake-up though. Thought Bubba was having a seizure. Then I realized everything was moving. Looks like they lost roads with 10" to 2' uplifts in the area and several brick buildings lost structural integrity, power outages, gas leaks, shut down the overpasses on 80/37 hwys, 80 injured. Train service was shut down within 100 miles of the epicenter.

It's funny. You sit there on the side of your bed and hope it doesn't get worse. It was an East wave for me. I was back asleep by 3:30am after I checked the water to make sure the well was intact.

Russ

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:10 pm
by rlown
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/25762 ... be-without" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Hours after the earthquake struck, thousands of Napa city residents were facing life without water and power, with no notion of when their situation would improve.

“The restoration of water is critical,” said Barry Martin, Napa city spokesman. “We’re ready to set up some stations to supply drinking water to people from trucks.”

City officials early Sunday afternoon warned that thousands of residents could be without water for a week before all of the breaks could be fixed.

There were 61 broken water lines Sunday, according to Napa fire officials.

How many people were out of water remained unknown Sunday afternoon, Martin said.

Easier to quantify was the loss of power to PG&E customers.

As many as 20,000 of the city’s 80,000 residents Sunday afternoon remained without power, officials said.

The quake knocked out power to more than 60,000 people in Napa and Sonoma counties, including 27,000 in the city of Napa and 15,400 in the city of Sonoma, according to PG&E. Most had power restored by mid-day Sunday.

Napa’s historic downtown took a tremendous blow from the mighty quake, with numerous buildings shedding piles of brick onto the sidewalk.

Napa City Manager Mike Parness said the city so far has red tagged between 15 to 16 city buildings downtown. A red tag designation prevents people from going inside until they can be inspected and deemed safe.

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:48 pm
by giantbrookie
Yes I hope folks made it through this without too much disruption. Disasters should never be called "interesting" in the big picture of damage and suffering, but from a scientific standpoint, this earthquake is, not on one of the 'usual suspect' faults. It is in a somewhat ill-defined zone of faults that folks have only recently started to think about in terms of earthquake potential. I was fairly vocal about this zone in scientific meetings in the 90's and when I was a member of various working groups on seismic hazard. As some of you may know a M6.0 is still below the level we really worry about in terms of planning. A M6.5 on zone, which I believe to be likely in the future (although "future" could mean anything from next year to a couple hundred years from now), would be far more damaging. As bad as this earthquake is for some, there is some benefit to this in terms of it being a wake up call for the general Napa Valley-Sonoma Valley area, for planners, engineers, and geoscientists alike.

I just got done doing TV interviews for two different networks on this subject.

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:52 pm
by rlown
I'll call you if i need my pipes fixed :) It's the Hayward moving isn't it?

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 10:13 pm
by balzaccom
We got hammered, much worse than the 5.2 in 2001. We were backpacking the Hoover Wilderness, and staying at our cabin near Sonora last night. Our phone rang at 6:30 with some friends asking if we were OK...that's how we learned about the quake.

Drove home to find just about everything you could imagine on the floor. Kitchen was a complete mess, bathrooms, not a book on a bookshelf anywhere. Many of our walls had huge chunks of plaster broken out of them...and the plaster crashed down on furniture.

we've spent the day cleaning up--got the kitchen more or less in order...and our bedroom and one bath. The rest will take days. And the plaster work is going to be a long, ugly chore.

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 7:05 am
by dave54
Felt nothing at our house. Did not know about it until reading the morning news.

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 9:51 am
by oldranger
This is weird! Saturday I was at the top of the Astoria Column when I suddenly had a realization that it would not be a good place to be if a significant earthquake struck. So I headed down and away as quickly as my old body would permit. Next AM first thing I saw on the weather channel was report of the Napa earthquake.

Mike

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 11:33 am
by balzaccom
Yes, we’ve had some damage due to the earthquake yesterday morning in Napa. The office is open today, and we are cleaning up a few broken bottles of wine, putting bookshelves back, and generally tidying this up. Our computers are working, our internet connection is fine, and we are open for business.

Some of our staff were hit harder than others. The worst seems to be downtown near the office, where my house had severe damage to the plaster walls, and everything ended up on the floor. The kitchen was a particular mess, with broken wine glasses and food on the floor. And the wine cellar lost some very nice bottles….very sad.

But we are all fine, healthy. Schools in Napa are closed today, as are many businesses, but we are all cleaning up, putting things back, and getting our lives into order again.

Here’s a link to the photos from my house, if you are interested:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Balzac1991 ... InNapa2014#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Earthquake

Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 11:39 am
by rlown
Sorry you got hit so hard, Balzaccom. Best wishes for a speedy recovery to you, yours and Napa.