It felt almost violent the way it jerked so hard. It center was 29 miles from downtown LA. I live in the Hollywood area, so I'm a little bit farther from where the center of the quake was set. But there hasn't been anything like this since the Big Northridge quake years ago. I am calming down a bit, but I'm still shakey.
The kitty's and I are fine. It sure mellowed out Simba.
The biggest earthquake I've been in was a 6.4 one, although the centre of it was around 50 miles away from where I was. I'd been in multiple smaller earthquakes before then though so it wasn't too scary although it was plenty unsettling, especially qhen the smaller aftershock earthquakes just kept coming.
I'm glad to have been through it though, it's an interesting experience.
Good to hear though that you're ok. It really depends on where you are in the world how dangerous earthquakes are.
I am about 30-40 miles SW of Chino Hills where it was centered.
I was sitting at my computer and felt the swaying for about 10 seconds and then BOOM the heavy shaking started and all the cats went running in every direction. The shaking lasted about 10 seconds and was pretty strong and then the swaying began again and lasted anther 10-15 seconds.
Damage reports are starting to come in now - water main breaks, roadway damage, runway damage at airports - hope everyone is ok. No damage here but it sure got my heart going!
It wasn't THAT bad but it was certainly the biggest since Northridge I think. The thing with Northridge tho is that it kept going and going. At least this one was shorter.
I am home sick today and was laying in bed half asleep. I felt a gentle swaying like I was in a boat. DH got up a half hour later and turned on the TV. They were talking about the quake. Hope everything is ok down there!
So far there are no reports of injuries. So, I don't think anyone was hurt. It will take a while before they get all of the damage reports.
No it wasn't anywhere near as bad as Northridge, but it was the worst one I've felt since that one. Also with Northridge, there was non stop aftershocks, that were almost as bad as the original quake. My kitty's took off running to their little cubbyholes, and Simba who is usually so active has been quiet since the quake.
There as a lot of aftershocks after this quake as well, but we aren't feeling them, here in Los Angeles. I would imagine the people in Chino Hills are feeling the aftershocks. Anyway that big jolt was really scarey. When you don't have quakes for several years, you get sort of unused to them, if you know what I mean.
I just heard on the news they lowered the magnitude of the quake from 5.8 to 5.4.
To me, the scarey thing about earthquakes is when it happens you don't know where the epicenter is so you are not sure "how bad" it really is. For example, if the earthquake today had been centered where I live, it would not have been that big. But say it had been centered in San Francisco (400 miles away), then it would have been reallly bad. So that is what always goes through my mind during a quake, until I can get online or turn the TV on to see where the epicenter was.