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5.8 Earthquake Aug 23, 2011


Kmlwx
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To be fair I just read a lot of schools in Fairfax are damaged also.

but it wouldn't be expected like it would be in PG. I'm mostly just joking around too...but PG is a horrible county.

stormtracker...chill out dude...don't get all worked up about it. It isn't the first time I'm slammed PG...so why you are getting worked up about a side little comment amount a larger post.

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but it wouldn't be expected like it would be in PG. I'm mostly just joking around too...but PG is a horrible county.

Where is PG county? I'm looking on a map, and I can't find any county by that name.

I guess when you live in Montgomery County, you feel empowered to be snobby and look down on a county you probably think looks like what you see inside the beltway.

Typical.

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By the time I'd registered it as an earthquake, it was over. My impressions of it can't be separated from the points of reference I was using in real time to filter the experience. So it's hard to be totally objective about what I felt at the time; it really was something very unique because I have no antecedents to the experience of having the structure around me shake like hell for a couple of seconds. You experience a wind gust of 70 MPH, your point of reference can be a wind gust of 20; a heat index of 122, well heat indicies of 105 happen just about summer around here -- hell, you can get that in a sauna. But out of nowhere, a house staring to shudder like it's got a fever that breaking -- that's a bit of an outlier in my life and, I imagine, in the lives of millions of people around here who've never put in time in earthquake zones.

There was a sound that crescendoed just when the "violent" -- yeah, that's the proper word to use, I don't need the Mercalli scale to tutor me on how to use the language -- vibration began. What made it violent wasn't the intensity of the shaking but that it was so unexpected and (in my experience) unprecedented. In retrospect, my attention was arrested by three things: how the chair I was sitting in shook , how the windows rattled, and how my elderly dog slept through the whole thing. In the immediate aftermath, I wondered if in fact it was an earthquake, because I looked to the dog for validation and he was snoring away as if nothing had happened. There was a brief nanosecond when I wondered whether I'd somehow imagined the whole thing, or that maybe my mail was being delivered by a Gorgon.

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Not sure what would be scarier for most -- it happening when it did around 1:50 in the afternoon when people are at work/in public, or it happening overnight/early morning when people are sleeping (like last years). Last July's was much, much, much weaker, but I was almost just as scared because being awoken by your house shaking at 5:30 in the morning is obviously terrifying. What do you guys think?

I wrote a blog about the 'great quake' -- mostly because it's been far too long since I last did on my site. ;)

Three quakes I mention, two on the same day -- two were pre-dawn quakes.

Northridge of course is well known:

http://en.wikipedia....idge_earthquake

Then Landers a few years earlier:

http://en.wikipedia....ders_earthquake

I lived right off a range created by the San Andreas so I was always kind of obsessed with that stuff but we lived on pretty solid footing as well. Getting woken up is pretty scary.. but I can see how being in a city during the day could trump that perhaps. The thing I will always remember from Northridge was going outside and watching the sky intensely light up with power flashes in the minutes after (and it was crystal clear so you could see super distant stuff). I was, what, almost 13... but even then I was partially thinking some war had just started or something.

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that just endeared you with Randy, I'm sure

Eh, whatever.

I was raised in Prince George's County and I also lived in Montgomery County. Both have sh*tty areas and both have great areas. I just felt the need to address the typical talk out of your ass insults about the county, especially when it's a flat out lie.

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Eh, whatever.

I was raised in Prince George's County and I also lived in Montgomery County. Both have sh*tty areas and both have great areas. I just felt the need to address the typical talk out of your ass insults about the county, especially when it's a flat out lie.

honestly, all of maryland sucks

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Where is PG county? I'm looking on a map, and I can't find any county by that name.

I guess when you live in Montgomery County, you feel empowered to be snobby and look down on a county you probably think looks like what you see inside the beltway.

Typical.

you know nothing and assume you know what I'm thinking. I'm just as critical of Montgomery County (after all, it's the county that hired and still employs Tony/MoD). I've been pushing the various papers to take a closer look and even dropping hints as to where to look....so stop assuming you know everything. So talk about typical....but whatever, you can go on with the drama...I got better things to do....like live in a world of facts.
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you know nothing and assume you know what I'm thinking. I'm just as critical of Montgomery County (after all, it's the county that hired and still employs Tony/MoD). I've been pushing the various papers to take a closer look and even dropping hints as to where to look....so stop assuming you know everything. So talk about typical....but whatever, you can go on with the drama...I got better things to do.

Hopefully they include getting your facts straight and stop posting BS.

Deuces.

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but I can see how being in a city during the day could trump that perhaps.

Definitely, especially in today's times with everyones mind on possible attacks. I honestly can't imagine what I would have done had I been in public...probably just ran outside.

I'm sure I'd be just as fascinated by quakes if I had your experiences. Also interesting to hear you describe today's quake in the way that you have -- certainly different from some snobby Californians who don't realize how earthquakes impact different areas, well, differently. It's like a Mid Atlantic or NE weenie making fun of someone who lives in Dallas over the city's reaction to a few inches of snow...

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Follow up on Monument:

The National Park Service says the Washington Monument may have suffered cracks near its top during Tuesday’s earthquake, and the monument could be closed indefinitely.

Park service spokesman Bill Line said there appear to be cracks “at the very, very top” of the 555-foot tall structure, and structural engineers were being brought in Wednesday to conduct a close inspection.

Meanwhile, the historic stone obelisk at the center of the Mall, south of the White House, will remain closed, and “could be closed for an indefinite period of time,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post_now/post/earthquake-reported-along-the-east-coast/2011/08/23/gIQAozdEZJ_blog.html

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Just out of curiosity, can someone explain how it felt? Was it more of a roll, and then more violent shaking? Just wondering.

Well it definitely started very lightly, woke me up, then felt like it went from a Gentle back/forth shaking to more of a "jarring", which is what I assume led to most of the panic. The last 7-8 seconds are what got my heart racing a bit faster as stuff started moving a little bit and I ran my ass outside.

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I was in my class room on the north side of our school when it sounded like a pack of animals was running across the roof from south to north towards me. Once the sound got overhead, the shaking starting and having been through a small quake in LA, I knew immediately what was happening. The shaking is unmistakable. Like others have said, it was relatively light at first, and it seemed like it was going to pass quickly, but then a longer and more pronounced wave went through that lasted just long enough to make me wonder if it was going to get worse. Then, like a rogue gust of wind that passes on an otherwise calm day , it stopped.

Minus the structural damage that some areas have, it was definitely a very cool experience.

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