Quakes hit home, shaken not stirred
By Jack Wagner
Things have been getting shaky at Santa Clara this past week, with numerous earthquakes disrupting classes, rattling buildings and surprising unsuspecting students.
Five of last week's earthquakes hit above the 4.0 mark on the Richter scale, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site. There were numerous other quakes that also shook the earth, but they were of lesser severity and would have been felt by only the most sensitive of observers.
The first earthquake this past week to register above 4.0 on the Richter scale took place on Thursday, Jan. 7, rolling out from a spot six miles east of Milpitas, CA. It measured at 4.1 and was the quake that was felt by students at Santa Clara.
For many students, especially first year students from other states, this past week was their first experience with earthquakes. Expectations were high for these students, and many were let down. Freshman Will Patterson, a Kansas City native was one such student. "It was anticlimactic," he said.
Other students, such as freshman Richard Kennedy from Maryland, had similar reactions.
"I'm very disappointed because I thought I'd at least be able to feel it," he said. "I didn't want anybody to get hurt but I wanted to feel something. I wanted the experience."
For students from the area who are used to the occasional shaking of the earth, the earthquakes served as minor novelties, brief distractions or even as nuisances as they did for freshman Myles Reed.
"I was in basic drawing and it messed up my drawing," he said.
Some simply found the trembling ground entertaining, and enjoyed the occurrences and the situations they were in when they struck.
Freshman Shawno Auwae was in chemistry at the time of one of the quakes. "My teacher stepped down so we thought he started it."
Freshman Shaleta Williams had a similar experience. "I was in my dance class and my teacher was jumping around, so we thought it was him," she said.
As with other earthquakes, there were numerous students who were unaware that the ground had even been shaking beneath them.
Of course some students had excuses for why they didn't feel the ground moving beneath them, like one student, who wishes to remain anonymous, who said, "I was in bed and too hungover to feel them."
Aside from the stories of people's experience with the shuddering land, the quakes were impressive in their own rights.
One of the quakes measured in at 6.5, seriously shaking Northern California's city of Eureka. The earthquake occurred on Sunday, Jan. 10, 33 miles southwest of the city's center, and was followed by a total of ten aftershocks, the strongest measuring in at 4.2.
In Eureka, 30 people went to hospitals and treated for minor injuries, but nobody was seriously hurt or killed.
For several hours, 25,000 of the 26,000 residents of the city were left without power. The only real damage beside the few injuries was the declaration that a minor number of apartment complexes and commercial buildings were unsafe for use.
The next three earthquakes above 4.0 on the Richter scale came from locations ranging from 23 to 27 miles west of Ferndale, CA. These measured 4.0, 4.4 and 6.5.
The last earthquake occurred 31 miles west of Petrolia, CA and measured at 4.1.
None of the earthquakes, including the 6.5 quake near Eureka, have posed a major threat to public safety.
The only real damage occurred to buildings and all injuries have been minor at worst.
It was thought that the city of Eureka might ask for aid from Sacramento, but at this point they have not, managing to handle the damage on its own thus far.
Now that the major shaking seems to be over, things have returned to normal, and students are left with only the memories of the event and the stories they will tell of their experiences once they return home.
For more information on the recent earthquakes, what to do during an earthquake and general earthquake information, visit the U.S. Geological Survey homepage at http://earthquake.usgs.gov.
Contact Jack Wagner at JCWagner@scu.edu.