Community Chat

[golding76]

Last month the Greek island of Lesbos, this month Kos and other points.   This is distressing.  When visiting the islands, vacationers look forward to easy pleasures.  How horrible to encounter a natural disaster when your mindset is geared toward easy living and ecstatic moments of joy.  

http://nypost.com/2017/07/20/deadly-earthquake-rattles-resorts-in-greece-turkey/

An old family friend and her husband are now on the island of Lefkada (hubby's birth island), which is in the Ionian Sea, but they will later go to Lesbos, where she grew up.  

Crete has been affected, too, and that is where many members of my late husband's family live. 

My former sister-in-law (first marriage) and her husband live on Lesbos.  Hoping everyone is well.

I'm beginning to fret over these shifts of the earth's plates.

[MickD]

@golding76 Oh no.  I hope there won't be aftershocks. Some of the islands were formed via volcanism.....and hence earthquake activity.  Greece does not need the extra stress right now. Prayers.

[golding76]

MickD, I totally forgot about the origins of some of the islands.  There are reported aftershocks. 

Really, this is very distressing.   I simply cannot imagine what this experience must be like.  I mean, you are there to play, not to worry about survival.

We had a 5.7 earthquake in Virginia several years ago, and that was the first -- and I hope only -- time I experienced one.

I was in my fourth-floor office, and the large pillars began to sway.  And they continued to sway.  The cleaning lady and I looked at each other and simultaneously yelled, "Earthquake!"   We ducked under desks and then were led outside.

[MickD]

@golding76 Wow that was a big one to experience!  I have experienced a few here in Cali.  The one freaky one was a rolling quake.  I was on my sofa and could see the floor rolling like a wave in my house.  The scariest was in a first floor office building.  I literally was hanging on to a pillar while people from the top floors were evacuating.

Imagine also having the aftershock of a tsunami???? Nope...I'd freak out!

[Plaid Pants2]

If you follow the line of the San Andreas fault, you'll see where it comes up to where I live, before turning west, and going in to the ocean.

Plus, three plates converge near me too. The Pacific Plate, the North American Plate, and the Gorda Plate.

It's never too far from my mind that I live in earthquake country, and I try not to worry about a big quake happening, but it will happen......someday.

[golding76]

You are brave, Plaid Pants.  I hope it never happens.

I added earthquake insurance to my policy, by the way.  We would have been laughed at four decades ago if we had asked for that.  Times have changed.

It is scalding hot and steamy where I am in Northern Virginia.  This will last until Sunday.  

[MickD]

@golding76 We live in southern CA and just added earthquake insurance earlier this year.  You are on the ball!  

[golding76]

CORRECTION:  It was a 5.8 in Virginia in 2011.

The 2011 Virginia earthquake occurred on August 23 at 1:51:04 p.m. local time in the Piedmont region of the US state of Virginia. The epicenter, in Louisa County, was 61 km (38 mi) northwest of Richmond and 8 km (5 mi) south-southwest of the town of Mineral. It was an intraplate earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 and a maximum perceived intensity of VII (Very strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale. Several aftershocks, ranging up to 4.5 Mw in magnitude, occurred after the main tremor.

With an estimated magnitude of 5.8.,[4] it, along with a quake on the New York–Ontario border in 1944 and the 2016 earthquake near Pawnee, Oklahoma is tied as the largest to have occurred in the U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains, since an equivalent 1897 quake centered in Giles County in western Virginia.[5]

[MickD]

@golding76 if ya can feel it, it is enough to scare the bejeesuz out of ya!

[golding76]

MickD,  I admit I was very frightened.  I think most of us who live in this part of the U.S. thought that we were safe from earthquakes.  It soon came to light that the area where we live in Virginia is awaiting a larger quake event, too.

NEVER knew this before 2011.