The Northridge earthquake - 15 years later

[Olympicnut]

It just now dawned on me that today (what's left of it) is the 15th anniversary of the Northridge quake. FIFTEEN YEARS! I lived 3 miles from the epicenter, so it was quite a shake. Here's a few memories of mine:

Waking up in the air above my bed when it hit. Literally I was IN THE AIR.

The smell of gas. I'll never get over that smell.

The sounds. The sound of crashing stuff. The sound of the house shaking. The sound of the earth moving.

The darkness. With no power, and it being 4:30am, it was very dark outside.

The water in the alley. No water main breaks caused the sheer flood of water we had in the alley. It was the water from everyones swimming pools that turned the alley into a river for those first few minutes after the initial quake.

The happiness of finding my dog after thinking the chimney might have fallen on her, since she slept underneath it.


Those are just a few of my memories. What are yours?

[All4dISNEY]

Making panic cell phone calls (no texting back then) to check on friends. Getting thru to someone I didn't know but was in the middle of the devastation and wanted me to phone his parents in Canada to let them know he was fine.

[Rex Dopey24]

it was quite a scared back then.

[SusieP.]

I remember everyone sitting around in the living room, stunned. My sister's BF had spent the night on the couch, so we were all hanging out in our pj's talking. I'm not sure if we eventually all went back to sleep, or just stayed up all night or what.

[Radiobarry]

I went into work at the radio station in Ventura usually before 5 AM. This was Monday, the Martin Luther King Day holiday (which turned out to be a blessing in many respects because fewer people had to work).

Anyway, in Ventura I felt the strong shaking and rolling, and I was just leaving the house where I lived at 4:30 when the power went out.

I had about a ten minute drive on the 101 freeway to get to work. You forget how dark that dark really is until you don't have any sort of street lights, freeway sign lights, anything besides the eerie strobe lights of all the police patrol units checking for damage.

At the radio station, since we were the OES station for Ventura County at that time, we had a backup generator that was used most of that day. We may have been one of the few places in Ventura that morning with hot coffee.

There was damage in places like Fillmore and Simi Valley. The west part of the county just had some broken stuff and badly frayed nerves. The station obviously went into full earthquake coverage.

My best friend was the news director, who lived in Simi Valley. After work, I went out there to help him clean up. What a mess, inside the house and outside, where a brick fence around the property was basically levelled.

But no injuries in that case, anyway except for Doug's wife, who didn't have slippers nearby and stepped on some broken glass right after the quake. Her foot was pretty badly cut.

What a day that was.

-- Barry

[whitealexander]

we just stay awake like 5 in the morning i was at a friends house at that moment making a visit...

[knittingknerd]

I was 12 almost 13. My best friend lived in Granada Hills and I remember trying to call her and not getting through. Then finally getting through and finding out her mom's filling cabinet barely missed landing on their dog and all their glasses were broken. Then a few weeks later trying to go to their house, and getting lost because the 210/118 interchange was closed. Scary times.

[Olympicnut]

Driving around was pretty scary. I took my mom and we went to my sisters in Camarillo that afternoon to live for a week, since we had no power or gas. It was interesting seeing how slowly everyone was driving on the streets and freeways, especially the freeways for fear a bridge was buckled or missing.

[sir clinksalot]

I was also 3 miles from the epicenter, and yeah, the shaking was crazy.

My recollections:

- Getting home an hour before the quake, and not being completely sober
- Having the feeling that I was being shaken awake and sobering up in about 2 seconds
- All our neighbors having what felt like a HUGE block-party with BBQ's in the street so that we wouldn't all waste our frozen food
- Trying to get up to Santa Clarita the day after and it taking roughly 4 hours
- Having to go the 126 to the 23 and it taking 3 hours to get from Santa Clarita to Woodland Hills ... Daily
- Our house being red-tagged, then yellow-tagged
- The rebulding of our house going on until mid-2005 due to getting screwed by contractors that gutted our house and left

[sunnygirl]

I remember this quake. I was pregnant with Paige, and I was 15 years old. I had sneaked her dad into my bedroom to stay the night and discuss our issue. The earthquake hit, woke us up, and BAM! My mother came storming into my room to be sure I was OK and busted me (naturally, he wasn't supposed to be in the house, or anywhere near me at that time). Once it was determined that we were all OK, my stepdad physically removed him from the home and I was grounded for some time.

Ahh, memories...

[Olympicnut]

sunnyg, that should be a bedtime story

[steamboatpete]

It was one of the more peculiar coincidences in my life. The night before, and into the morning, my future wife was in my room, and we were watching TV. My TV sat across the top of my dresser, hanging over the edges quite a bit. For no particular reason, as she got up to leave at about 2 a.m. (we had Monday off for MLK Day), I remarked that I needed to make a safer place for the TV. "We're going to have a big earthquake and my TV is going to fall right over and be gone, gone, gone," I told her. I hadn't much worried, or even thought about it, before that night.

The earthquake hit less than three hours later. Remembering our last conversation of the night, I jumped out of bed and ran straight to the TV, holding it in place until the shaking stopped. Meanwhile, books were flying off my bookshelf above my head, and several of them landed on my head and back. But the TV made it though the quake, and I put it on a more suitable stand later than week.

We joked about my new-found psychic abilities, but I've only had one other premonition, out of many, come true, so we chalk it up to pure but odd coincidence.

[knittingknerd]

Originally Posted by sunnygirl

I remember this quake. I was pregnant with Paige, and I was 15 years old. I had sneaked her dad into my bedroom to stay the night and discuss our issue. The earthquake hit, woke us up, and BAM! My mother came storming into my room to be sure I was OK and busted me (naturally, he wasn't supposed to be in the house, or anywhere near me at that time). Once it was determined that we were all OK, my stepdad physically removed him from the home and I was grounded for some time.

Ahh, memories...

Does Paige know this story? That's kinda' cute.

[tamasurvivor]

I remember being a young child and having the aftershocks all night... not to mention we lived in the San Gabriel valley at the time but it was still felt all night.

That and the news would keep the footage of the quake going most of the day and so we would hear of it and watch it at our Elementary School all day. Not to mention we did plenty of earthquake drills that day. The crazy thing is that when I went to high School here in Phoenix everyone looked at me all strange when I mentioned an "earthquake drill"

Its wild to believe its been 15 years already since the quake.

[amanda.collishaw]

Originally Posted by knittingknerd

Does Paige know this story? That's kinda' cute.

It is really cute!