esrosedotblog

QUAKE AND SHAKE

The Daily What

It was amusing to see the combination of restless excitement, self-mocking and generally freaked out reaction to yesterday's earthquake epicentered in Virginia.

The NYTimes, in its morning edition, had five separated featured stories about it. All falling into that range of reaction and including a dispatch from the West Coast featuring eye rolls from people who live with daily quakes, mostly not felt.

I had the enjoyment of being on the sending end of the "are you alright" email. Yes. No one felt it.

A 5-6 Richter is pretty common here. A mild jolt (slip strike) or shake (long wave) tremors.

Of course, we will tell you that we would not want to be anywhere near the hurricane bearing down on the Southeast Coast. We might have retired to Florida. But we didn't.

Here it is "shake and bake". No flooding.

It is fun to see tables turn. Or maybe shake around.

At one time, in MA, we had earthquake insurance. It was very inexpensive.

The reason for this was that, in Boston, all brick neighborhoods would come down like lego blocks. Much worse than anything here where there is earthquake resistant construction as well as height limitations. Of course, one would, perhaps, not want to live in a collapsed city but the money would be there to cover the loss.

Conversely, we do not have any earthquake insurance here. It is very expensive and has way too many clauses in the conditions to make it worthwhile. There is a State supported insurance which is less expensive but it has a huge deductible. Forget it.

Labels: earthquake, weather