(Belated) quake blog entry

As you all know by now, on the morning of October 16 we were woken up by an earthquake. At first I heard a noise that made me think it was just starting to rain hard, but then it became clear this was no rain. In my experience so far, rain had never come in and shaken the bed. It IS possible that our little matchstick and lego housing project would have a doorway that is considered sound, but our instinct was to get out entirely. Okay, B had the instinct--I was still thinking, hmmm, earthquake. (We're on the second floor of two stories and have a nice big open space out front.) After we ran outside the signs in the parking lot were all still wiggling. Then there was a significant aftershock/second temblor that we felt as well. Total damage to our place? Zero. Some stuff fell over, but nothing broke or anything. I thought about taking a picture of the two things that fell over. There was very little damage on Oahu.

This was my first earthquake--B has felt quakes before (notably the 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area, and the 1986 earthquake in Mexico). B woke up to me saying "It's an actual earthquake!" This was amusing, in retrospect, because it's not as though we'd had some drills or fake earthquakes in the past. But I suppose I meant as opposed to our neighbor walking around or a truck going by, which can feel like a small earthquake.

The activity was all near the Big Island. The two we all felt on Sunday morning were 6.7 at 7:07:48 AM at a depth of 29 km, 10 km NNW of Kalaoa, HI and 6.0 at 7:14:12 at 18.9 km depth, 20 km SW of Hawi, HI (info from USGS.gov). You can see a map of recent activity on the USGS site.

A neighbor we met that day blogged a bit about the neighborhood and includes some photos. He was here two years ago for the October Manoa flood as well.

Oahu had a unique difficulty with power as a result of the earthquake. It went off for the entire island for much of the day. (There is some local grumbling about whether and how this could be avoided, etc., but I have no dog in that fight.) We got our power back at about 11 PM. And we had no "old-fashioned" phone so couldn't make any calls. We were well-prepared in terms of water and pantry foods (still from the hurricane threat in July), but we clearly need to get a no-frills phone and get our camp stove out of storage (read: my parents' garage in Boulder). Oh, and packaged ground coffee--or at least a manual grinder. The projects are all electric, but even if we'd had gas to heat water, the coffee grinder is electric too.

Forced to stay home and with no internet, I did a lot of reading (until it got too dark) and we did a little walking around the neighborhood. Most of the day was rainy, but it let up somewhat in the afternoon. We in fact had a lovely evening gathered with other folks in our corner of the project Sunday night. Sitting around a camp stove under the mailbox shelter (it was still raining off and on--we had our umbrellas too), sharing food and wine. We met some neighbors we hadn't actually met before (previously referred to as so-and-so's mom, or so-and-so's husband) and in general behaved like a...a...community. I heard many expressing similar feelings about their low-key, low-tech day--enjoying their families, neighbors, and others.

Some friends and family were quite concerned, as Mainland news made it sound like all of the islands are the Big Island, but at least they were careful to say there were no casualties. It's quite remarkable for an earthquake of this size, but apparently the difference lies partly in the kind of motion. These quakes were more of a sideways motion, as opposed to an up and down. This is how they account for the lack of wave danger and relatively small amount of structural damage for an earthquake of this magnitude. Some discussion of this was on NPR Talk of the Nation episode. (Just be patient, they get to it eventually.)

The whole thing was exciting, interesting, and scary all at once. Quite the adrenaline rush. I'm secretly pleased that it happened as this single event supports my life-long paranoia that has always led me to sleep with some sort of pajamas. (What if there is a fire?) Just ask our friend who we hear ran halfway down the hall in his condo before he remembered he'd been sleeping naked. (Hope he had his key...)