Where were you during the 1994 Northridge/Reseda earthquake? (Santa Ana, Glendale: power lines, house)

[whitechocolate86]

I was just curious what an Earthquake feels like in different parts of a big city with that type of risk...did it feel profusely different in Torrance than in the Valley when it happened?

[JTGJR]

Can't speak for anyone else- but I can tell you it was much different in the valley vs the South Bay. I was in my home . . . sleeping. Nothing fell but there was shaking. My son was born a month later at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in a birthing room with boarded-up windows. We also had to find an alternative route to Cedars as the I10 had collapsed at La Cienega.

[bhcompy]

In Lakewood it was just a nice severe rolling motion. Woke me up and I felt like I was on a water bed. Lasted a fairly long time as well

[HappyDaffodils]

I was in the South Bay, in bed. My dog woke me up a few seconds before. He was prancing around on the bed looking at the window. A few seconds later the earthquake started.

I do remember hearing a horrible metal scraping sound, might have been the street light pole moving.

The earthquake started with a jolt, then rolling motion. My mother starts screaming because earthquakes still scare her, even after living in California for 25 years.

[CESpeed]

I was living in Hollywood at the time. I had just gotten up for work. I heard a BOOM and then the house started jumping up and down. It was so nice to be crouch under a table listening to glasses breaking in my just unpacked kitchen.

There was a crack down the middle of my street and the water main under neath broke as well. The steeple on the temple at the end of street was leaning like it was going to spike someone.

A friend who lived down the street had never been in an earthquake before so he laid in bed and watched the window of the building next door bounce out of his sight and then back. He was sure he was going to die. Poor guy.

[Charles]

In Moorpark near Moorpark College. In an eery similarity to the Feb 1971 earthquake it was quite warm that day, like in the 80s. I remember sitting in my backyard getting a suntan (burn) in the early afternoon when an aftershock hit - I could see my backyard lawn roll. The power went on in Moorpark around 3:45 PM or so that day. In 1971 I remember going out the front yard and shooting baskets on my basketball hoop - it was very warm - Santa Ana type day.

My exi-poo girlfriend lived in Granada Hills at the time near Sesnon and Balboa. She said the shaking didn't stop for 45 minutes.

Dogs: I was at a party a few months later and I overheard someone say "Ya, I was awake when it happened". So I asked him why he was awake. He said his dog woke him up several minutes prior and the dog has a perfect track record: Never wakes him up unless there's an earthquake and always wakes him up when there is an earthquake.

[katenik]

i was in san francisco. i missed that one, but i can tell you all about loma prieto (the "world series quake," in october '89), during which i was 6-10 miles from the epicenter and cut off from the rest of the world for nearly three days.

[KewlGuy]

The thing I remember is it occurred on Martin Luther King's birthday.

[SandyCo]

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday is January 15th. The earthquake occurred on January 17th. However, it was a Monday, so perhaps that's when his birthday was being celebrated that year.

I was living in Glendale, and leaped out of bed to run to the doorway. The shaking seemed to last forever, but it was only thirty seconds. My roommates and I were without power until about 11:30 a.m., and then of course, we watched the news all day to see what was happening in the Valley. I was out in Sherman Oaks and Encino for several aftershocks, and they were rough enough. I can only imagine what the main shock must have felt like to people in Reseda and Northridge!

[the one]

i was in bed and when it happened i lay in bed smilling! always loved earthquakes. i particularly remember the whittier narrows one. watching the 10 foot chain link fence of a nearby school sway back and forth practically touching the cars parked alongside the street. it was wild. power lines snapping. the "after shock" even tho it was like 4 days later was just as exciting. i been waiting for one! not too close to do serious damage, but just enough to rattle and roll.