Earthquake!

There's nothing like a 5.6 magnitude earthquake to get your Sunday started off right. Although my house is quite a ways from the epicenter, it was the strongest quake I've felt here in a number of years. Looks like it was center south of Palm Springs (near Anza) in the area where the San Andreas Fault runs. I hope it's not a foreshock - the next one will be a doozy.

UPDATE: There have been about 31 aftershocks since the 8:41 am quake (it's now 9:29). The largest so far only a 2.8 and we haven't felt any of them here. You can see the earthquake map here.

I remember two other Sunday mornings when we got shook up pretty well. On October 1, 1987 the 5.9 Whittier Narrows earthquake hit , and on the following Sunday morning we had the largest aftershock. It got your attention.

The biggest Sunday morning quakes I can remember occured on June 28, 1992. At 4:57 am we had the Landers earthquake which registered 7.3 on the Richter scale. We were jolted out of bed, and my wife, being the great mother she is, took off on the run for my son's room (he was only 1 at the time). It was still dark outside, except for brilliant flashes caused by transformers blowing off all over Southern California. It looked like the end of time out there.

Me, being the good Dad that I am, immediately leaped out of bed and ran over to the entertainment center (hey, I paid a lot of money for that TV!). Fortunately my daughter, who was 4 at the time, was fine in her bedroom without me (thank goodness, or I would never have heard the end of that).

The shaking wasn't done, however. After I was sure everything was fine at home, I drove over to my office to check everything out there. I returned home just in time for the 8:05 am Big Bear earthquake, which registered 6.4 on the Richter scale. It was apparently triggered by the earlier Landers quake. As you can imagine, we were wondering what in the world was going to happen next.