Saturday, January 09, 2010

Damn Earthquakes! Samoa style.

Everyone of our rooms in our house in Samoa suffered damage today. Even our wood pile by our house fell down. Glass everywhere. Robin had not only put baby latches on our cupboard but had used quick wax to hold things down. Robin was so bummed that other things just flew off our walls that left memories destroyed.

A guy at the tsunami evacuation area in Samoa was told by a person from a guy from NOAA that he does not have to worry about a tsunami unless the bridge is knocked down from the bridge.

Lori Dengler has said that an duration of such magnitude that you need to hold on to something or sit down to not fall down. Those two factors that would lead to tsunami. Those criteria were met. Are those to be ignored?

We need more standard operation procedures for earthqaukes obviously.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear you and Robin and everyone else are fine. I was really worried for you. I hope Smokey was ok and wasn't badly freaked. Well as we both said, you have the surf board and I have the boat to ride it out lol. You probably weren't able to get her by cell because the network was jammed because people were probably calling at exactly the same time as us

Fred Mangels said...

I was wondering if tsunami was a worry, myself. KMUD had some guy on the phone last night that teaches geology at C/R and HSU, if memory serves me. He seemed to already know what kind of quake this was (although his power was out) and said this type of earthquake doesn't generate tsunamis, or something along that line.

Still, some guy from Shelter Cove said the waves appeared to be moving backwards for a while down there. The geologist guy didn't seem to worried but, for me, if I saw something like that, I'd be heading for high ground.

Usually, if you see the sea level go down real fast, that's a pretty sure sign you're going to get hit with a wave. Waves going backward isn't quite the same thing but close enough for me.

unanonymous said...

NOAA is a weather agency and Dengler is a 2-bit wannabe seismologist. I would go with USGS site. http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latestfault.htm


Truth is, you need a large enough earthquake to cause displacement or rupture of the earths crust to form significant Tsunami. At M=6.5 the eq was just below the magnitude required for rupture to occur. As for NOAA comment that the bridge must go down before tsunami, I would hope the retrofit they did the other year would hold up to at least a M=7.5 -8.0. Also, if bridge down, you are not going to make it to 'mainland', head for the highest dunes and hope you got enough elevation....

Anonymous said...

Hey I heard you were in the hometown buffet when this happened. You kept getting hit in the head with ceiling tiles, but you kept on eating your fried chicken like a champ! Way to go Richard! You show that damned earthquake that nothing comes between you and some slop!

Seriously though, when they evacuate the mall next time, you shouldn't use it as an excuse to grab all the food you can off the buffet, so you can keep gorging in the parking lot. There are no doggie bags at a buffet Richard. Poor form.

samoasoftball said...

I was not at the buffet! That would have been a nightmare. I don't even want to think about that happening.

Rose said...

It was the strongest one I have felt, would have pegged it much higher than 6.5, but I guess being close and being such a shallow quake explains it. Amazingly nothing fell or broke here. Everyone got out of their houses, neighbors checked on neighbors, everyone was on their cell phone, most didn't have service, landlines did work, we got calls within minutes from out of area family.

Eureka - friends reported feeling the ground drop out from under them, cars were moved a couple of feet, shop windows shattered - if you haven't seen the liquefaction maps for Eureka you should, it looks like bay inlets throughout the city...

I'm still waiting to hear how ferndale fared - any word?

Glad you guys are ok. My kids were scared, but hey, in other countries they'd be digging bodies out of the rubble. We're all very fortunate.

Anonymous said...

Some might even say we are the chosen people, Rose. Chosen by God.

JMC said...

Richard, I heard that there was no major damage to the pulp mill. last week. (stores is a mess) have you heard anymore?

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
Some might even say we are the chosen people, Rose. Chosen by God. 7:02 AM"

Yes. Chosen by God.

But for what?

?