What an Earthquake Feels Like and What to Do When One Occurs

Having been born and raised in California and having lived there until 1970, I (alone or with my family) have felt a number of earthquakes. We have been fortunate, however, to have suffered no bodily harm or property damage from any of them other than, perhaps, some minor cracked plastered ceilings and walls.

There is a USGS website that lists all California earthquakes recorded since 1769 to the present. The site lists the dates and times as well as the magnitude and the exact location of any quake that measured more than 6.0 during all those years. There are only a few quakes that stand out vividly in my memory and, luckily, none is shown in the above named website. So, my personal experience with earthquakes might be considered insignificant.

Earthquake & Tsunami In Japan

Well, being there during a quake has never been insignificant to me. In my youth, both in the classroom and at home, it was scary when either place started to shake. All of us, whether young or old, seemed to share that instant fear that results when the ground beneath us begins to move and we can't do anything about it. Since I have no recollection of any dates of those tremors that I did experience in my youth, they were either "insignificant" or forgotten.

There are three eventful earthquakes that I , alone or in the company of one or more of my family, did experience. I remember them vividly - they are difficult to forget. The first was another one of those that did not make the USGS list of major earth movements in California. It was in 1955 and our oldest daughter who was then six years old was walking with me in our back yard in Redwood City. As the shaking intensified I held her to me with one arm as I held on to one of our fruit trees with the other. All three of us (my daughter and I, and the tree) wobbled back and forth for an almost interminable two or three minutes that to us felt like hours.

The second one was in 1963. Our entire family was visiting Disneyland in Southern California. The earth started to shake just as we were beginning to walk from our hotel toward the famous landmark. By the time we reached the entrance to Disneyland, a distance of only a few blocks, all the streets and sidewalks were awash from the water that had sloshed out of the many nearby hotel swimming pools as a result of the prolonged back and forth shaking.

My last experience with an earthquake was a lonely one during a religious retreat in San Juan Bautista, California. It was some time in the late sixties and I was alone in the old on site chapel. As the building, with its woodwork creaking, started to shake I quickly headed for the door to the outside. I remember saying a little prayer - something like, "Help me get out of here in time, Dear Heavenly Father. But, if I must go, what better place to finally meet you!"

If you are outside when the earth starts to shake, it would probably be safest to be in the middle of an empty parking lot. Little if anything could then drop on to you and hurt you. If not in a parking lot, and there is a tree nearby, grab it and hold on for dear life. Try to get as far away as possible from a brick building - especially an old one. If there are old brick buildings everywhere, then try to stand in a doorway of one of them with the hope that it will protect you from falling debris. If you are inside when the shaking begins, again stand in a doorway or crawl under a heavy piece of furniture like a dining room table. Under a bed with a good mattress is not the worst place to hide. These are my personal safety suggestions of what to do when the earth starts to shake. Our home is here in Juneau, Alaska which is located along a highly seismically active area called "The Ring of Fire" that, thankfully, has remained quiet all the years since 1970 when we first arrived in this most beautiful and peaceful place. So far, the only thing that has fallen on us has been the rain.

What an Earthquake Feels Like and What to Do When One Occurs