The End of The World

As most of you know, at least in the San Diego area, we had an earthquake here on Tuesday afternoon.

Now, I have lived in San Diego my entire life and while a 5.3 is a moderate quake ... FOR GOODNESS SAKES PEOPLE, it wasn't that strong! Everyone in my office started freaking out and wondering if the building was going to collapse. I thought it more than absurd that people would actually run towards the windows during the shaking, I know if glass break that's where I would want to be. jeesh.

Earthquakes manifest themselves in a variety of ways. Some are rollers, some are shakers and some are sharp jolts, like this one was. It occurred on a fault just off shore from Imperial Beach. There are a multitude of smaller faults in the San Diego Area, with the Rose Canyon fault the largest known (which by the way is responsible for the Canyon between Clairemont and La Jolla that I-5 runs down). The well know San Andreas fault faults passes well to our east and is capable of 9.0+ quakes. The Rose Canyon fault is estimated to produce a quake of magnitude 7.0 max, which is still an extremely powerful quake. Every 1.0 increase in magnitude is a 10x increase in strength.

A large, damaging quake is going to happen sooner or later, but this wasn't it. So enjoy the momentary excitement, the break in the monotony, and move on. But for goodness sakes stop fretting over this. If I hear one more 'there could be a bigger one coming!' I'm gonna scream. When the 'Big One' hits you aren't going to be able to do a damn thing about it. So pick up the pina colada and make sure the burgers don't burn on the BBQ. Enjoy the summer!