Just saw a headline on MSNBC just now while online.....hang in there you all down in my second home, the Bay Area and San Francisco..please keep us up to date when/if you can!

I just read this story and didn't feel a thing from the Valley here. I heard on the news that it was a 3.7 on the Hayward Fault, which is overdue for a 6.0-size quake to relieve the pressure there.

We had another 3.7 about an hour ago on the Hayward fault in Berkeley.

Yawn. Just another day in California.

Living in California, earthquakes are just a minor inconvenience for the most part, particularly with the stringent building codes now in place. I think I'd rather take the earthquakes over the hurricanes or tornadoes or freezing cold that hits other parts of the country.

I lived in Sonoma County for ten years and was there for the Loma Prieta quake in 1989. Have felt a few small ones here and there, mostly due to the geologic activity around the geysers north of Santa Rosa. The small ones are actually kinda fun - and over with before you really have time to realize what's going on.

But being a native midwesterner, we take tornadoes and blizzards in stride like Californians do earthquakes. You can't do much about it until after it's over, so try to prepare in case it happens and deal with it when it does. Last year, we had two tornadoes skirt thru or by Ames, both on the day before we had a home football game (Iowa in September, then Colorado in November) and we won both games prompting people to say that we really were a "Cyclone State."

Can't say we've felt any earthquakes here that I can recall. A couple of years ago, there was one in northern Illinois that was reported to be felt by a few in eastern Iowa. I doubt people here would know what it was anyway, unless they were told ("that's a California thing").

The quakes in the last few days up north can mean 2 things:

1) That pressure is being released on a particular fault (a good thing) or

2) That they are a pre-cursor to a larger, more dangerous quake (not a good thing).

The good news is that it's usually #1.

Debilitating earthquakes....now I remember why I live where I do.

I thought it was because you got stuck in a snowdrift.

Earthquakes are hardly debilitating. Severe lake-effect snowstorms are. That's why I live in California where snow hits maybe once every 100 years, if even that.

Actually that was the reason and it was so cool that I decided to stick around




Snow once in a century....how sad .....can't imagine a green Xmas....oh wait, I just had one yesterday

I've lived in SF for over ten years now and last thursday's 3.7 just east of Berkeley on the Hayward fault jolted my apt something fierce, perhaps the biggest jolt since I've lived here. I thought my xmas tree was going down....
I went through the Northridge earthquake in 1994 while living in Hollywood just a few miles away - I prefer never to experience that again. I do believe these minor ones let off steam but i do remember that there were a series of small ones in santa monica the week before the northbridge blaster. I'll never forget the intensity of that 94 quake or the relentless aftershocks (several 5.0's) during the week after. It was something else. For some reason they don't really scare me, in fact there's something primal and natural about them, but the damage and fear they cause is sometimes horrific.

Yes, but lake effect snows don't shatter your dishes, bust your vases, tip over your expensive furniture and electronics, and put cracks in your ceilings and walls.

I grew up in L.A. but moved east in 97 -- those couple quakes were the first I've really felt since Northridge in 94. Pretty crazy stuff.

I was back east over the holidays and missed all of them