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Native Floridian here, never experienced an earthquake before.
How does it feel to go through a 5 or 6 or even 7 earthquake in Boise metro area/Treasure Valley?
My understanding (correct if wrong), the earthquakes in the area are usually centered in mountains East of Boise/Treasure and the farther west you go, the less shaking you feel??
Anyone been in a recent (major?) earthquake in say Middletown, Nampa, or even Meridian? How did it go?
.......How does it feel to go through a 5 or 6 or even 7 earthquake in Boise metro area/Treasure Valley?.........
How does it feel to go through an earthquake? It feels like you've just been through an earthquake. The ground shakes and then the ground stops shaking.
I suspect that it doesn't feel any different to go through an earthquake in Boise than it feels to go through an earthquake any where else. The ground shakes. If you are awake and aware, you might feel it. The earth isn't going to split open and release dinosaurs into the city.
Stick built houses are rarely affected. They tend to be flexible. Maybe if you are worried, you could attach your taller bookshelves to the walls so they won't tip over. If the ground shaking scares you, go stand outside until it is over.
Sometimes if the ground shakes hard enough, it will set off a few car alarms. If it sets off your car alarm, go turn the alarm off.
Here is a seismic hazard map for Idaho.... Boise is well outside of any known major active fault area. The last big one in ID at 7.3 on the Richter scale was about 100 miles NNE (Mt Borah) in the early 80's, and there was one recently about 60 miles NE (near Stanley).
Boise and the Treasure Valley is in Seismic Category B in the 2015 International Building Code and that is not very severe. It is not anything like all of coastal CA, and locales like Yellowstone NP.
The odds of not even noticing n earthquake are good in Boise. Idaho hasn't had a big quake in a very long time, but it has lots of little ones. The Treasure Valley is well out of the most active areas.
I've been in 2 very large earthquakes, the one in 1961 on the Idaho /Montana border that caused a major landslide that eventually created Hebgen Lake.
The other was just offshore of Lima, Peru, in 1967. That one was the largest by far, and the ship I was on was right over the epicenter of the undersea earthquake.
In that quake, there was a deep thumping sound that wasn't very loud, and theteled fade and return in strength.
The shaking came along with a very loud sound, sounding like BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!, and the ship shook violently, actually bending upward and downward along the keel line. The shake was so intense it was next to impossible to walk, and it didn't fade at all. It continued full strength until it stopped.
Since I had been in one before I recognized what it was, but no one else did. The Captain thought we had suddenly broken the propeller's drive line. The XO though we had hit a floating hulk that was just under the surface.
Feeling the hull flex was very scary, but the ship escaped damage.
Not so with Lima. A tsunami wiped out the beach and boat landing I'd been on the day before, and much of Lima was flattened.
Native Floridian here, never experienced an earthquake before.
How does it feel to go through a 5 or 6 or even 7 earthquake....
I grew up in the L.A. area. Been through several big earthquakes. I was about 30 miles from the epicenter of the 6.7 Northridge quake. Early morning, laying in bed... it was like two very heavy freight trains were suddenly speeding down opposite sides of the bedroom. Very loud and very shaky! If you're close, the "jolt" is sharp, farther away it's a softer, rolling feeling.
The odds of not even noticing n earthquake are good in Boise. Idaho hasn't had a big quake in a very long time, but it has lots of little ones. The Treasure Valley is well out of the most active areas.
I've been in 2 very large earthquakes, the one in 1961 on the Idaho /Montana border that caused a major landslide that eventually created Hebgen Lake.
The other was just offshore of Lima, Peru, in 1967. That one was the largest by far, and the ship I was on was right over the epicenter of the undersea earthquake.
In that quake, there was a deep thumping sound that wasn't very loud, and theteled fade and return in strength.
The shaking came along with a very loud sound, sounding like BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!, and the ship shook violently, actually bending upward and downward along the keel line. The shake was so intense it was next to impossible to walk, and it didn't fade at all. It continued full strength until it stopped.
Since I had been in one before I recognized what it was, but no one else did. The Captain thought we had suddenly broken the propeller's drive line. The XO though we had hit a floating hulk that was just under the surface.
Feeling the hull flex was very scary, but the ship escaped damage.
Not so with Lima. A tsunami wiped out the beach and boat landing I'd been on the day before, and much of Lima was flattened.
Reuters soon followed with a teletype report.
"Big quake in a very long time", except for the mag 6 5 in 2020 felt in Boise. That quake is why the OP posted this thread.
I grew up in the L.A. area. Been through several big earthquakes. I was about 30 miles from the epicenter of the 6.7 Northridge quake. Early morning, laying in bed... it was like two very heavy freight trains were suddenly speeding down opposite sides of the bedroom. Very loud and very shaky! If you're close, the "jolt" is sharp, farther away it's a softer, rolling feeling.
Loma Prieta in 1989 was a big bad one across a wide area.
"Big quake in a very long time", except for the mag 6 5 in 2020 felt in Boise. That quake is why the OP posted this thread.
The earthquake in 2020 was located 70 miles from Boise. If you click on the USGS shake map for that event you'll see that once the quake reached Boise the intensity had dropped to about a 4, so 100 times less intense than the epicenter. A 4-ish earthquake is very minor. In fact, there was almost no damage whatsoever in Boise... apparently someone's mirror fell, LOL
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which we don't get in this region.
