What's Shakin'?

St Louis was at 4:35 this morning.

By the time you read this you will have heard all the details about a 5.2 earthquake felt here in St. Louis. There was no damage here but it was quite a rolling jolt…bed shaking, windows rattling, etc. Enough to get the adrenalin racing. After living my whole life near the Bay Area in California (until 1993), I’ve experienced quite a few earthquakes, so I knew exactly what was happening when I was awakened from a sound sleep by this one. The only thing I found confusing was that while still in my sleepy state, I thought I was back in California. We went downstairs and make coffee and watched the news and reminded ourselves of what to do in case of a major quake.

So our day started early today. I'm used to earthquakes and think that if you ain't screamin', it ain't nothin'. I'm more fearful of tornados.


Earthquake Facts: From the How Stuff Works site
http://science.howstuffworks.com/earthquake1.htm
We only hear about earthquakes in the news every once in a while, but they are actually an everyday occurrence on our planet. According to the United States Geological Survey, more than three million earthquakes occur every year. That's about 8,000 a day, or one every 11 seconds!
The vast majority of these 3 million quakes are extremely weak. The law of probability also causes a good number of stronger quakes to happen in uninhabited places where no one feels them. It is the big quakes that occur in highly populated areas that get our attention.
Earthquakes have caused a great deal of property damage over the years, and they have claimed many lives. In the last hundred years alone, there have been more than 1.5 million earthquake-related fatalities. Usually, it's not the shaking ground itself that claims lives -- it's the associated destruction of man-made structures and the instigation of other natural disasters, such as tsunamis, avalanches and landslides.