Bay Area Earthquake

colojo

colojo

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Colojo
A 6.0 quake struck early this morning. According to the LA Times, the epicenter was less than a mile west of the Napa airport (KAPC). I used to be based at Napa and am anxious to hear from any pilots based there now if there was much damage at the airport. I know there was quite a bit of damage in town.
 
iHenning, you obviously don't know squat about earthquakes. The collapsed and burned buildings, trashed grocery stores and buckled streets in Napa prove you wrong.
 
colojo said:
iHenning, you obviously don't know squat about earthquakes. The collapsed and burned buildings, trashed grocery stores and buckled streets in Napa prove you wrong.
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I lived in CA for a decade and went through 2 biggies, Loma Prieta & Northridge as well as a smaller one in Big Bear as well as a plethora of small quakes. I don't recall serious damage in anything less than a 6.8.

Yeah, things fall off shelves in a grocery story, big deal. If buildings are collapsing on a 6.0 there are issues outside a small shock. If a 6.0 knocks over a building around there, someone was in serious code violation.
 
Local news reports are saying that it was older buildings that had a problem. There were also some fires.

Last I heard, there were 85 people injured, two of them in critical condition.
 
Palmpilot said:
Local news reports are saying that it was older buildings that had a problem. There were also some fires.

Last I heard, there were 85 people injured, two of them in critical condition.
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Sounds like someone didn't do their refits properly.
 
It takes more than a fart to wake me up at 3:30 in the morning and this one was a pretty good rocker that I think must have gone on for half a minute or so because I was awake for the last 20 seconds of it.

I wouldn't compare it to the '89 quake though and, as always, the situation is not nearly as dire as the news would have you believe but it did get my attention.
 
Silvaire said:
It takes more than a fart to wake me up at 3:30 in the morning and this one was a pretty good rocker that I think must have gone on for half a minute or so because I was awake for the last 20 seconds of it.

I wouldn't compare it to the '89 quake though and, as always, the situation is not nearly as dire as the news would have you believe but it did get my attention.
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Woke all of us up, including the dog, just outside of Sac. Bad news for Napa. Lots of expensive wine on the floor.
 
I thought there might be potential for damage at KAPC because the epicenter was so close and the ground there is riverbed/alluvial plain which is prone to liquefaction. There is a lot more to the impacts caused by an earthquake than just the Richter number.
 
Henning said:
I lived in CA for a decade and went through 2 biggies, Loma Prieta & Northridge as well as a smaller one in Big Bear as well as a plethora of small quakes. I don't recall serious damage in anything less than a 6.8.

Yeah, things fall off shelves in a grocery story, big deal. If buildings are collapsing on a 6.0 there are issues outside a small shock. If a 6.0 knocks over a building around there, someone was in serious code violation.
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I was there for Northridge and Big Bear too. BB wasn't much of a problem as Northridge...Sections of .I-10 twisted on the west side is definitely serious damage. The good news was no loss of life, IIRC.
 
I've been through a couple of smaller California quakes. We had a 5.8 in DC in 2011 and we were not far off the epicenter. Oddly, I was on the phone with colleagues in Thousand Oaks CA when it hit and I'm like "Um...you guys aren't going to believe this, but we're having an earthquake HERE." My wine cellar in the Virginia house didn't have the most elaborate racking (sometimes you'll knock bottles out of it just pulling out other bottles). I got to the base of the stairs and found the fridge door ajar. With great trepidation I opened the cellar door but there wasn't a bottle out of place.

Now the quake was felt to a lesser extent down at my place in North Carolina. Oddly there, the wine, in much better racking, looked like some drunk had been playing with it. While nothing had fallen out of the racks, many of the bottles had vibrated to they were sticking out of the racks. Took me a half an hour to go whack them all back into position.
 
murphey said:
I was there for Northridge and Big Bear too. BB wasn't much of a problem as Northridge...Sections of .I-10 twisted on the west side is definitely serious damage. The good news was no loss of life, IIRC.
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I think one or a few got it in that Apartment building that collapsed the ground floor, that was about it, and that is my point, the 8.0 rules have been in effect for a long time including retrofit in higher occupancy buildings. A 6.0 should not lead to structural collapses with those levels of loss. All those buildings should be gone or retrofitted after prior quakes in the area of even higher magnitude.

Reminds me of Hurricane Andrew in Miami. Lots of big time code violation and corruption.
 
flyingron said:
I've been through a couple of smaller California quakes. We had a 5.8 in DC in 2011 and we were not far off the epicenter. Oddly, I was on the phone with colleagues in Thousand Oaks CA when it hit and I'm like "Um...you guys aren't going to believe this, but we're having an earthquake HERE." My wine cellar in the Virginia house didn't have the most elaborate racking (sometimes you'll knock bottles out of it just pulling out other bottles). I got to the base of the stairs and found the fridge door ajar. With great trepidation I opened the cellar door but there wasn't a bottle out of place.

Now the quake was felt to a lesser extent down at my place in North Carolina. Oddly there, the wine, in much better racking, looked like some drunk had been playing with it. While nothing had fallen out of the racks, many of the bottles had vibrated to they were sticking out of the racks. Took me a half an hour to go whack them all back into position.
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A lot depends on what type of ground the building is on.
 
Henning said:
I think one or a few got it in that Apartment building that collapsed the ground floor, that was about it, and that is my point, the 8.0 rules have been in effect for a long time including retrofit in higher occupancy buildings. A 6.0 should not lead to structural collapses with those levels of loss. All those buildings should be gone or retrofitted after prior quakes in the area of even higher magnitude.

Reminds me of Hurricane Andrew in Miami. Lots of big time code violation and corruption.
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The 8.0 rules have been in effect since the Long Beach quake in the 30s, but you're presuming dynamics were fully understood then. It is not so. Every moderate quake has surprises. There just haven't been all that many and most have the inconvenient habit of occurring in remote or unexpected areas.

It is not evidence of any sort of corruption.

In some parts of the world, a 6.0 quake would kill tens of thousands or more.

5.0s knock things off shelves. There is a huge difference between those and 6.0s. Expect localized significant damage from those, especially on unconsolidated fill.
 
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MAKG1 said:
The 8.0 rules have been in effect since the Long Beach quake in the 30s, but you're presuming dynamics were fully understood then. It is not so. Every moderate quake has surprises. There just haven't been all that many and most have the inconvenient habit of occurring in remote or unexpected areas.

It is not evidence of any sort of corruption.

In some parts of the world, a 6.0 quake would kill tens of thousands or more.
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The code also saw a major rewrite in 1972IIRC and more recent refinements exist as well.
 
Henning said:
I think one or a few got it in that Apartment building that collapsed the ground floor, that was about it
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57 fatalities in the 1/17/1994 Northridge Earthquake, 16 of which were in the collapsed Northridge Meadows Apartments.

Palmpilot said:
A lot depends on what type of ground the building is on.
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And how deep the actual motion of the quake is. The one yesterday, and the Northridge quake, were both very shallow and close to the surface. Thus the amount of damage seems out of proportion to the Richter number.

By comparison, the 2001 Nisqually/Seattle quake was also M6.8, but at a depth of 52 km (vs. 18 km for Northridge). It caused much less damage, other than to old, unreinforced masonry buildings, and was blamed for only one death -- a heart attack. Shallow quakes also usually result in more numerous and more damaging aftershocks.
 
Henning said:
The code also saw a major rewrite in 1972IIRC and more recent refinements exist as well.
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Yes, and people were still surprised at the level of shaking in San Francisco and Oakland in 1989. No one foresaw I-880 collapsing, and the resultant investigation proved the design assumptions were fully consistent with code, yet still inadequate for the level of shear experienced. Same deal with the Bay Bridge.

Santa Cruz and Watsonville were both devastated in the river floodplains, but both were much closer to the epicenter. And only one person died in that county. For comparison, more than 50 died in Oakland. That was a 7.1, still well short of the 8.0 standard.
 
Where I am, it woke me up, I noted the time waited until it was done and went back to sleep. My wife slept through the whole thing and had no clue this morning. Just a reminder we live in California. I'm really glad we moved. Our old house in Oakland was pretty much right on top of the Hayward fault. Now we are many, many miles from the faults. The big Hayward fault movement is over due now. When it happens, it's going to be ugly. I really pray that my wife and I are here and not at work over there when it does eventually happen.
 
My niece lives in Martinez and she ain't gonna have gas or hot water again until Tuesday. Came over here to take a shower.
 
My mom lives in Vallejo, the city right next to the epicenter. She felt it in the early morning and the dogs were barking. My sister slept right through it. No damage done at her house.
 
Dav8or said:
Where I am, it woke me up, I noted the time waited until it was done and went back to sleep. My wife slept through the whole thing and had no clue this morning. Just a reminder we live in California. I'm really glad we moved. Our old house in Oakland was pretty much right on top of the Hayward fault. Now we are many, many miles from the faults. The big Hayward fault movement is over due now. When it happens, it's going to be ugly. I really pray that my wife and I are here and not at work over there when it does eventually happen.
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You live in Discovery Bay and think you're safer than Oakland? Maybe, but probably not. Most of the land in the Delta is poorly consolidated and will sink below sea level in a large earthquake. You do not need to be near an epicenter for that, as all those people on 880 discovered in 1989. It was 75 miles away.

As for faults, that 4000 foot mountain a few miles away came from somewhere.
 
I'm in Santa Rosa and it woke up the entire town. A giant explosion followed by a big rolling motion. We had a couple things fall but no damage. Our chandelier on an 8 foot chain was swinging about 3-4 feet.

However, the epicenter was less than a mile west of the Napa airport. The windows were blown out and replacement will take a while. So, it's now Echo airspace instead of delta. I've heard anything about hangars or other damage. But an epicenter about the length of a runway is about as close as you can get.


http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Napa-airport-open-after-earthquake-damages-tower-5709248.php


Nothing appears in the NOTAMS yet. A call to their AWOS also gave no information. So, they're either slow posting it or they found a way to keep the tower open and this article is wrong.
 
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callmesven said:
However, the epicenter was less than a mile west of the Napa airport. The windows were blown out and replacement will take a while. So, it's now Echo airspace instead of delta. I've heard anything about hangars or other damage. But an epicenter about the length of a runway is about as close as you can get.
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I suspected there might be problems at the airport; hence my original post. Good thing it was just a 6.0 "fart."
 
Henning said:
I think one or a few got it in that Apartment building that collapsed the ground floor, that was about it, and that is my point, the 8.0 rules have been in effect for a long time including retrofit in higher occupancy buildings. A 6.0 should not lead to structural collapses with those levels of loss. All those buildings should be gone or retrofitted after prior quakes in the area of even higher magnitude.

Reminds me of Hurricane Andrew in Miami. Lots of big time code violation and corruption.
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Many of the buildings damaged were over 100 years old. Many of those were reinforced hence only facade fell off, but having the front of the building lying in the street could be considered substantial damage, even if the building is intact inside.

Napa's elected representatives decided to keep the history nature of the town instead of bulldozing it and replacing with modern boxes. Was that corrupt?
 
And having a building "red tagged" is quite a bit different from a collapse.

In 1989, there were a couple of deaths in Santa Cruz County. One of those 100 year old facades fell of onto the Coffee Roasting Co.'s patio. But downtown Santa Cruz, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Watsonville, was devastated by the earthquake. More than half the buildings on Pacific Ave. were red tagged, and many of them were pulled down just days after the earthquake. If you want to tell now, basically all the stucco buildings in downtown have been built in holes in the ground made just after the earthquake. It's a lot of them. But none of them collapsed.

The seismic rules are to prevent deaths. Not for buildings to survive unscathed.
 
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Kristin said:
Many of the buildings damaged were over 100 years old. Many of those were reinforced hence only facade fell off, but having the front of the building lying in the street could be considered substantial damage, even if the building is intact inside.

Napa's elected representatives decided to keep the history nature of the town instead of bulldozing it and replacing with modern boxes. Was that corrupt?
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Good call. But how do you argue with a poster that thinks they have all the answers over 36,000 times......:dunno:
 
Fun to watch Californian's get upset after one of their earthquakes. When an 8.0 happens, no amount of engineering will keep gas mains from breaking, buildings from collapsing, and roads from buckling.
 
CTLSi said:
Fun to watch Californian's get upset after one of their earthquakes. When an 8.0 happens, no amount of engineering will keep gas mains from breaking, buildings from collapsing, and roads from buckling.
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Who is upset?

I lived through several moderately large quakes, especially 1989. I never witnessed anyone being upset about the damage they cause.

We all know there is some risk to be mitigated. And we do it. Most of us have 3-day disaster kits, and have bolted foundations and reinforced crawlspaces, plus the emergency pipe wrench to turn off the gas.

Just like midwesterners all know there is a risk of tornados in summer and autumn, and southerners know about hurricanes.

It's the outsiders that get all their panties in a bunch. It doesn't help that Fox News took photos of one apartment building in the Marina that buckled, and used it to show that San Francisco was "destroyed." The reality was quite different.
 
Ya know, choosing to live in Ca is inexplicable.
If it isn't on fire then the hills are mud sliding into the valleys
If it isn't burning up with drought the ground is quaking
If the Santa Ana winds aren't blowing then it is a hurricane
Or there is drinking water emergency
And on and on

Friend of my daughter from her modeling years in LA came to Michigan to visit
She wanted to see Mackinac Island (loves Somewhere In Time) so we loaded her into the Super Viking and went
Over the Michigan northern pine forest she was almost speechless - a carpet of green to the horizon in a 360 around the plane
Said she had never seen so much green in her life
She had never been in anything but a jet liner before
Had never watched white piles of mashed potato clouds punching into the windscreen at 180 mph
She loved it
Still went back to plastic land
Inexplicable
 
ateamer said:
If she'd never seen vast forests while living in California, she didn't get out much.
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And if she saw hurricanes, she was a bit, umm, disoriented.

If it's such a terrible place to live, why do one out of 10 Americans choose to live here?

I've been to Michigan a number of times. Nice, but hardly unique.
 
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Some barrel cellars got hit hard and churned them all into a jumbled mess. Several steel tanks holding wine cracked and shot wine all over the floors. Some reporting as much as a 50% loss. I slept through at home in Windsor. My girlfriend woke me up as it was ending and said "Babe, I think we just had an Earthquake" (our closet doors were rattling in the frame), I half woke up and said "It happens" and rolled over and fell back asleep.

Luckily it happened at around 3:20 AM, it's not uncommon for workers to be climbing or standing in between those stacks of barrels.
 
MAKG1 said:
You live in Discovery Bay and think you're safer than Oakland? Maybe, but probably not. Most of the land in the Delta is poorly consolidated and will sink below sea level in a large earthquake. You do not need to be near an epicenter for that, as all those people on 880 discovered in 1989. It was 75 miles away.

As for faults, that 4000 foot mountain a few miles away came from somewhere.
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I do. The problem with Oakland and the East Bay is most of it is land fill and densely populated. When the Hayward fault goes, the carnage will be wide spread and emergency response will not be adequate. It's not the earthquake itself so much as what happens afterward. I expect huge, largely uncontrolled fires followed a few days later by looting and riots.

Discovery Bay might get torn up too, but the aftermath will much more manageable I hope. I don't know about sinking below sea level, I suppose given the right epicenter and magnitude it could happen, but I kind of doubt it. Hopefully my hangar doesn't collapse and tweak my plane. Hopefully Byron airport has at least one runway, or taxiway unbroken. Hopefully I'll be able to get out and get back with supplies.

I know, a lot of hope in there...:eek:
 
Dr. O said:
Ya know, choosing to live in Ca is inexplicable.
If it isn't on fire then the hills are mud sliding into the valleys
If it isn't burning up with drought the ground is quaking
If the Santa Ana winds aren't blowing then it is a hurricane
Or there is drinking water emergency
And on and on
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Yes, its a tragic death trap of misery. If you survive all the natural disasters, the state government will take what's left. It's a horrible place to live. Tell everyone within shouting distance. Get the word out. Make sure the news is in Spanish too!

I was born and raised here and have lived here all my life. I can't remember, or ever hearing of a Hurricane hitting California. Besides, I think they would be called a Typhoon, right?:dunno:
 
Dav8or said:
Yes, its a tragic death trap of misery. If you survive all the natural disasters, the state government will take what's left. It's a horrible place to live. Tell everyone within shouting distance. Get the word out. Make sure the news is in Spanish too!

I was born and raised here and have lived here all my life. I can't remember, or ever hearing of a Hurricane hitting California. Besides, I think they would be called a Typhoon, right?:dunno:
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No, it would be a hurricane this side of the Pacific, the ones that hit Mexico and Hawaii are hurricanes. Also Typhoon covers both Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. Once it has a full rotation wall, it's a Typhoon.
 
Colojo's post about concern regarding his former airport and community gets turned into a rant about earthquake severity and then opinions on California. I don't know why I keep checking in here? I left the red board for trollish & sniping thread hijacking. I guess that's why I have just 32 posts in 5 years on this board. This used to be a supportive place. :mad2:
 
callmesven said:
Colojo's post about concern regarding his former airport and community gets turned into a rant about earthquake severity and then opinions on California. I don't know why I keep checking in here? I left the red board for trollish & sniping thread hijacking. I guess that's why I have just 32 posts in 5 years on this board. This used to be a supportive place. :mad2:
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Some people just can't help but cringe when the state is even mentioned. I always crack up when people say they couldn't live in Earthquake country. The quake yesterday was our biggest in 25 years and we haven't even one single reported fatality from it yet. Whatever, More airspace for us!

By the way, good to see some more POA'rs (assumedly) based out of KSTS. :thumbsup:
 
Dr. O said:
Ya know, choosing to live in Ca is inexplicable.
If it isn't on fire then the hills are mud sliding into the valleys
If it isn't burning up with drought the ground is quaking
If the Santa Ana winds aren't blowing then it is a hurricane
Or there is drinking water emergency
And on and on
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I really, really wish more people felt this way, then there wouldn't be so damn many people here. The reality is that I can't think of a nicer state to live in. Example, for the past 3 weeks, in the peak of summer, the temperature where I live has peaked in the high 70's to 80 degrees with very comfortable humidity. Same forecast for the next week. The majority of the rest of the nation normally has high temps and high sticky humidity in the summer, and cold, sometimes frigid temps in the winter. I'll take one earthquake every 5 years or so (I kinda like the rockin' and rollin' anyway), to enjoy constant moderate weather. If it gets to 90 for 2 days it's a "heat wave", and if it drops to 40 at night, it's a "cold snap":lol:. Yeah, we're wussies, so be it!
And as for something other than weather, CA has it all, from desert to redwood forest, to alpine mountains. Countless miles of seashore and tons of freshwater lakes.
In less than half a day I can drive from the Pacific Ocean to my place at Lake Tahoe, arguably the most beautiful lake in the world.
This state is so large and diverse that one could possibly spend the majority of their life exploring it.
Additionally, regardless of how "terrible" people say the political climate is here, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
The one huge negative about the area in which I live is the cost of housing. But the reason for that is the abundance of employment. People like to startup companies where it's nice to live, go figure.
These are a few of the reasons why I laugh when I hear people rip into California, or advise someone to move out of California to where they live.
 
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