There was a very distinct jolt.
Then, a moment later, a roll. Two seconds at most.
I checked the Alaska Earthquake Center website.
The most recent earthquake listed was 11:41pm. Mt. Redout . A magnitude 2.3 quake at 80 feet depth. It sure felt stronger than that. Since I was on their website and there was a button to report my experience with the quake, I did.
This afternoon I asked my granddaughter if she felt it. No. Oh wait, was that an earthquake? Yeah I felt it.
Then a friend who's visiting said what time was it? 11:41 pm. There was a 3.9 at 11:42.
And that must have been the one I felt. Closer and stronger. I reported the wrong one. Sorry. Looking at the Center's website, I see there were 61 earthquakes between midnight and now (8:45pm) in Alaska. Most were less than magnitude 3, but six were 3 or more. Below is from the list on the webpage, but just focusing on the one at 11:41 and 11:42pm last night.
A magnitude 3 earthquake is relatively mild, yet it was noticeable. And ever since we experienced the 7.2 earthquake November 2018, earthquakes do get our attention as we wait to see if there is going to be more or not.
While I was looking for the previous link, I found another one that gives equivalents of Richter Scale Magnitude from 0,5 "A Large Hand grenade" up through all the other numbers to 10: "Never recorded by humans."
Hi Steve. Well, I have to step up to this invitation as an former Alaskan who couldn't stand up during the 1964 earthquake. Nine years old and a distinct body-memory distinct from the visuals I recall. Still strikes me (in that way children can experience terror as 'fun') that it was all exciting until I got outside to be thrown off my feet in the gravel, snow-covered street with a friend -- it was hearing the ground CREAK and seeing the birch trees in the wood across the street from our house whipping from side-to-side, almost (or did they) touching the ground on that to-and-fro. It was seeing cars parked in my friends driveway actually 'hop' on the ground (more likely skidding back-and-forth). But it was that CREAKING I remember so well, that ominous sound that was what was REALLY frightening.
ReplyDeleteThe time out of school, having close friends move in to our house (as we had a great big fireplace and a father who kept lots of birch logs on supply in a dry basement) for a week or more. It was, for a child, an adventure. And that's how I remember it: But then, visiting a friend who (had) lived in Turnagain -- his house famously hanging off a precipice in a photo well-known from that time -- and finding it over that edge a week after the quake.
It was the attention we felt hearing the fantastical reports of MASS DESTRUCTION and DEATH from outside reports -- carried back to us by short-wave radio operators that were still in use back then, from US national news organizations -- so MUCH wrong in those reports as to destruction and deaths. The way it was to gather news from far-away places then.
But a memory seared into body memory... I still know when a 'big' one comes round to this day -- and don't get too excited by what some (who don't have that body-experience of a huge quake) of the 'small ones'. You'd find me poor company for a magnitude less than 6.5, actually.
Anyway, thanks for your post. I guess I needed to share that, from a place I will always consider 'home' in those really precious ways of we humans.