There was a small earthquake just north of Las Vegas this morning. According to the Las Vegas Sun it was 2.7 magnitude earthquake and occurred at 7:10 a.m. PST.
The location of the epicenter of this morning's earthquake,
just north of Las Vegas.
I did not feel a thing.
Of course, this was a very small tremor and people usually start to feel earthquakes when they reach 3.0 or higher on the Richter scale. I remembered the Northridge quake back in January 1994. Even though I wasn't even near Los Angeles that morning, I did feel that one. I was still lying in my bed at home in Las Vegas that morning when it started to shake. It felt endless. I knew immediately that this quake wasn't centered in Las Vegas. I can't explain how but it felt differently. I knew however that the shock waves were coming from the Los Angeles area. And they were strong. I really thought at the moment that this was "it." The Big One. It's been talked about long enough.
It was not. Nevertheless, it was still a devastating disaster. Many people lost their lives, thousands were injured and the damages were immense. George and his family were right smack in the middle of it all. Fortunately, this event left them unscathed. And luckily for California...if one can call this lucky...this was not "the Big One."
Compared to the Northridge earthquake, our little tremor here in the Las Vegas Valley this morning was rather insignificant. People here tend to forget that Las Vegas is still part of Earthquake Country. The city sits on many fault lines. Even if the earthquakes here are few and far between.
The official map of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Considering, we are pretty safe here from any kind of natural disasters. Besides the occasional little tremor, we have no hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes or blizzards. We barely get a drop of rain here.
Still, this makes one stop and wonder. What if? Well, if there really was going to be an earthquake then there's pretty much not one damn thing I could do about that. If it happens, it happens. All one can hope for is to survive and make the best out of a dire situation.
We only have this one life, people. Go and live it. One never knows what's brewing right under our feet.
Or over our head, for that matter.
1 comment:
We had a small trembler here (eastern Canada) many years ago (early eighties, I think). It actually woke me in my bed. I thought it was a large transport going by at first, but realized later that it had been an earthquake. I'm not sure I could live in an earthquake-prone area...
Appropriately enough, the word verification is "squall"! :)
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