California Earthquake - 5.8 Richter

Dos, are you OK?

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g-JQC5ESySZKfb7WpG_XRBRxNNYwD927N4MO0

Strong quake shakes Southern California
By ROBERT JABLON – 37 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A strong earthquake shook Southern California on Tuesday, causing buildings to sway and triggering some precautionary evacuations. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The jolt was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and slightly in Las Vegas.

The 11:42 a.m. quake was initially estimated at 5.8 but was revised downward to magnitude-5.4, said seismologist Kate Hutton of the U.S. Geological Survey office in Pasadena. More than a dozen aftershocks quickly followed, the largest estimated at magnitude-3.8.

The quake was centered 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles near the San Bernardino County city of Chino Hills, and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake was about 8 miles below the earth’s surface.

“It will certainly cause cracked plaster and broken windows, but probably not structural damage,” Hutton said.

The magnitude-5.9 Whittier Narrows quake in 1987 was the last big shake in that area. That quake heavily damaged older buildings and houses in communities east of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury in Los Angeles. San Bernardino and San Diego counties also had no immediate reports of damage.

Buildings swayed in downtown Los Angeles for several seconds.

Workers quickly evacuated some office buildings.

“It was dramatic. The whole building moved and it lasted for a while,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore, who was in the sheriff’s suburban Monterey Park headquarters east of Los Angeles.

As strongly as it was felt, the quake was far less powerful than the magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake that badly damaged the region on Jan. 17, 1994. That quake was the last damaging temblor in Southern California. It killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 and caused $25 billion in damage in the metropolitan area.

No electrical outages were reported in Los Angeles due to the quake, said Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Kim Hughes.

In Orange County, about 2000 detectives were attending a conference on gangs at a Marriott hotel in Anaheim when a violent jolt shook the main conference room.

Mike Willever, who was at the hotel, said, “First we heard the ceiling shaking, then the chandelier started to shake, then there was a sudden movement of the floor.”

Chris Watkins, from San Diego, said he previously felt several earthquakes, but “that was one of the worst ones.”

Delegates and guests at a cluster of hotels near the Disneyland resort spilled into the streets immediately after the quake.

Joseph Maddalena, who runs the historical documents and memorabilia dealer Profiles in History, was on the phone in his office in Calabasas, near Malibu, when the earthquake struck. He quickly put down the phone and ran to check on his 14-year-old son who had come to work with him as he prepared for a Thursday auction of 1,100 pieces of Hollywood movie memorabilia.

“Our building shook pretty good,” he said after discovering his son and his employees were unharmed and the building was fine.

“The window in my office kind of bowed out but it’s all right now. Everything is fine,” he said.

The damage created by an earthquake depends greatly on where it hits. A 7.1 quake — much stronger than Northridge — hit the Mojave Desert in 1999 but caused only a few injuries and no deaths.

California is one of the world’s most seismically active regions. More than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth’s major tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates. About 10,000 quakes each year rattle Southern California alone, although most of them are too small to be felt.

Associated Press Writers Thomas Watkins and John Rogers contributed to this report

No state didn’t fall off into the Pacific no care. :slight_smile:

EDIT:
I sure hope Nancy Pelosi is fine. /sarcasm

You know NY almost always follows CAs actions…

i was actually driving back from LA when this happened. crazy

:spilleddrinkjoke:

30 second quake is over. Nothing broke. Now they can resume being better places to live than here until the next disaster. (fires?)

Yeah, but only NYC needs to slide off into the ocean and NY state would be fine.

Come on global warming flood. :slight_smile:

From California…to the New York island…

We can change the song. :wink:

From West Nevada… to the New York coastline…

The magnitude-5.9 Whittier Narrows quake in 1987 was the last big shake in that area.

As strongly as it was felt, the quake was far less powerful than the magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake that badly damaged the region on Jan. 17, 1994

¿Que?

ugh… 5.8 is nothing powerful

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!

i was on the phone with my counterparts out there when this happened.

how close to santa ana?

:bigblap:

Wow that Chino Hills got rocked for the last few hours by quakes.

3.6 2008/07/29 13:40:41 33.945N 117.735W 15.1 4 km ( 2 mi) SSW of Chino Hills, CA
1.9 2008/07/29 13:24:46 33.949N 117.729W 14.6 3 km ( 2 mi) S of Chino Hills, CA
1.9 2008/07/29 13:13:20 33.940N 117.740W 14.4 4 km ( 3 mi) SSW of Chino Hills, CA
1.7 2008/07/29 12:57:32 33.950N 117.730W 11.4 3 km ( 2 mi) SSW of Chino Hills, CA
0.9 2008/07/29 12:44:12 33.973N 117.763W 16.6 4 km ( 2 mi) W of Chino Hills, CA
1.9 2008/07/29 12:25:32 33.944N 117.782W 17.7 6 km ( 4 mi) WSW of Chino Hills, CA
1.9 2008/07/29 12:22:40 33.937N 117.757W 14.3 5 km ( 3 mi) SW of Chino Hills, CA
1.8 2008/07/29 12:19:59 33.959N 117.812W 17.5 5 km ( 3 mi) S of Diamond Bar, CA
2.3 2008/07/29 12:18:44 33.946N 117.731W 14.2 3 km ( 2 mi) SSW of Chino Hills, CA
2.2 2008/07/29 12:12:28 33.953N 117.729W 14.3 3 km ( 2 mi) S of Chino Hills, CA
5.4 2008/07/29 11:42:15 33.955N 117.765W 13.6 4 km ( 3 mi) WSW of Chino Hills, CA

meh she is in carlsbad, so not that close. she didnt think it was a big deal but they have some buffalo people visiting out there today that were acting exactly how those cali people do when they come out here and get caught in a snow storm.

I am in Buffalo for the summer, I am OK

haha read this thread and then saw this video… kinda lame but i laughed a little…