Japan earthquake brings back memories of California ones I experienced

Posted on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 06:02 PM

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I was in an earthquake twice and did the wrong thing both times.

It was when I was living in San Francisco in the 1980s. There was always a danger of course, but I never really thought about it.

Until I was sitting at the bar of Ireland's 32 on Geary Street one Friday afternoon when suddenly the glasses began rattling and the floor began shaking.

You never expect the ground to give way underneath you and it was a petrifying moment.

I did exactly the wrong thing.

Instead of hiding under a table or standing in a door jamb I bolted outside into the street, which of course exposed me to falling wires, bricks and anything else that might come down.

The second time I was up a ladder painting a house when the quake hit.

I had an horrific hangover from the night before and felt the ladder shift.

I was sure the hangover was much worse than I had thought and I climbed down and went home.

Only when I got back there did I realize it has d been a fairly significant earthquake.

I thought of those two occasions today as I watched the awful scenes from Japan.

My earthquakes were 5.8 and 6.2 on the Richter Scale, I can only imagine what a magnitude 9 must feel like.

May they all come home safely, the missing and the lost.

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Monsoonman | Mar 12, 2011, 05:54 PM EST

Niall: Irelands 32, just a step step stagger stagger down the street from Abbey Tavern. Many an earthquake I felt on that street over the years. My arse has a keener sense than the richter and knows when to pay attention to the temblors. On another note, I think this is going to signal the death knell of nuclear power in the USA. Now on to clean coal, natural gas and hydro electric. We have more of it than any country in the world.

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Towngate | Mar 12, 2011, 02:54 PM EST

THE IRISH INVENTED EARTHQUAKES! I bet ya didn't know that now! Knowing he could hear through the air and hear through the water,he naturally wondered if he could hear through the ground too! He planted a bomb deep in a beach ( we call it a Strand, here.)near Dublin, and a microphone thing a distance away. Sure enough he discovered his instruments would hear the explosion through rock and sand! He was delighted with himself as he wandered back home to Capel Street and reflected that, although he couldn't find a use for his discovery today, a time will come, some fella sittin' in a bar or up a ladder painting a house, maybe, will owe his life to me, and offer up a few prayers for the soul of Robert Mallett of Capel Street, Dublin. "Inventor of the Earthquake!"

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Dublinjas | Mar 12, 2011, 07:07 AM EST

Some time ago I signed up to get regular emails from the USGS, (US.Geological Survey) who continuously monitor earthquakes worldwide,which I in turn plot using Google Earth Pro, For the past week before this horrendous Quake, there has been a plethora of smaller but still significant Quakes in the exact area where this giant struck. On the 9th of March alone there was a Magnitude 6.1 a 6.2 a 6.0 a 6.6 and a 7.2 near the east coast of Honshu, so there certainly was signs that something was starting to move.

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jacersagain | Mar 11, 2011, 07:42 PM EST

Throwing in a story about a hangover during an earthquake in SF, attempting to be funny, is insensitive. I returned home from holidays on the day the NYC towers fell and witnessed it all live on TV. I had a holiday hangover during those hours but to this day, I don’t use it as an excuse to joke about the tragedy. It was horrific watching people in cars and houses being swept away in Japan’s tsunami. Get a grip Niall... there are some things to joke about and then there’s some you... well, you know the rest.

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