@catsalad I can't tell you about cats, but I was in SF for the Loma Prieta quake and that was an experience on the 17th floor of an office building watching the buildings outside sway from side to side. They're built to do that so they don't fall down. I actually had driven in that day, so was able to drive all the way around the bay to get back to where I lived. Bay Bridge was damaged and it was pretty chaotic. Other than that the regular little quakes were sort of ho hum. You get used to them.

@catsalad depends, may cats usually stay still paying attention. And depends on the earthquake. Some feel shaky, others feel like if you have low pressure.
I would strongly suggest to avoid them

@catsalad it's extremely subjective. Broadly speaking there are two types: the ones that move mostly side to side and the ones that go up and down.

I experience magnitude 4 ones a few times a year. The side to side ones might make you dizzy, depending on how long they last. The up and downs jolt you.

Then there are the mag 5 ones. Those are strong enough to make me question whether I should get ready to get out. They make noises (the ground rumbles, windows rattle), the movement is more evident.

I have experienced a few mag 6 myself. Those are strong enough to cause significant concern. The noises are louder, the movement is impossible to ignore. I instinctively reach out for something to grab on. It feels like you are going to fall if you don't.

Mag 7 is something else entirely. I myself can keep composure (as in "not scream, not run") but that's not true for most people. It's violent. I remember being afraid the building might collapse (in places where there's a seismic code, it's unlikely, but possible, assuming the buildings follow it). A short mag 7 is unlikely, so it's not only more violent, it's longer, too.

I've lived thru a single mag 8. That's how my mind imagines war (I don't know, I've never experienced that, but that's where my mind goes). Officially it lasted for 69 seconds. It felt like an eternity. I was on a fourth floor, and it was long enough for us to decide it was better to get out of there and walk down while it was still happening, because every time it felt like it was going to stop, it came back stronger. I guess the uncertainty is the worst part about it.

I hope I never have to go thru a mag 9, but my father did. His description matches those over-the-top movies that look completely unreal. He says he could see the ground opening and closing in front of him. Walls and streets moved like paper in the wind.

I've seen earthquake simulators in museums. While they match the movement, they don't recreate the noises, the visuals and the feeling (you know it's safe).

@catsalad I was very near the epicenter of the Virginia earthquake of 2011. I thought someone was jackhammering outside. I looked out the window and didn’t see any construction equipment and was confused. The shaking went on for thirty seconds and I don’t think it occurred to me it was an earthquake until my father said so, because they were completely outside my threat model and it felt so much like what you’d expect from a very close-by artificial cause of shaking.

before I was born, my mother was in a bigger one, and her first thought was that a train had derailed and hit the building.

@catsalad Everything shakes or sways. The alarms are more terrifying than the shaking. Then I post that I’m fine in case the quake was big enough to make international news.

@catsalad
The big ones I have been in (> 6.0 magnitude) have been pretty scary—you can’t really walk due to the shaking. Things fall, the building makes noises like it might fall down. After a few minutes they are over though. (So weather and fires can be worse for me ).
Near the epicenter in big EQs, > ~7.0, the acceleration can be > 1g. That must be really terrifying- things don’t stay on the floor. I haven’t experienced that, thankfully

@catsalad

I've experienced a few smaller ones (i.e. no property damage). The feeling was confusion and, afterwards, a bit shaken up (pun not intended). Some of the confusion is what you would expect - confusion about what's happening - but I feel like there's also a direct effect on the mind.

@catsalad We live in a very active earthquake zone. 3 major ( >6.5) quakes in the last 4 years. Earthquakes were fun until we went through the Loma Prieta quake in the Bay area in 1989. Quakes up to 5 are ok. After that the can be scary depending on how close you are and what type of building your are in. Cats don't like earthquakes at all. Ours have issues from all the ones we have here in Ferndale.

@catsalad They can vary a lot.

The best one I experienced was a rolling motion while I was walking in a field of wildflowers near the ocean. Just instinctively sat down to wait it out and it was mild.

The worst was a powerful quake in a subduction zone so there was a lot of strong, noisy, relentless shaking, which I experienced inside a concrete building (Brutalist architecture, so brutal). Do not recommend.

The safety mantra, btw, is "Drop, Cover, and Hold On."

Cats hide as best they can.

@catsalad I've experienced two distinct varieties, both when I was living in Tokyo:

1. Everything begins slowly, subtly swaying, but the magnitude of the sway keeps increasing over a few minutes until it's too strong to stand up without falling over; things are falling off walls and furniture is toppling and you hear glass breaking and crashing noises and alarms going off. Then it gradually tapers off the same way it built up.

2. You can see a weird compression wave coming at you from the far distance, incredibly fast, like a visible sound wave in the ground. Then it hits you and there's a tremendous booming sound and the ground just moves suddenly sideways a few feet and everyone falls over, like a rug has been pulled out from under the whole world. And that's it. It's weird and singular and everyone gets back up, a bit disturbed and out of sorts.

@catsalad

We don't get many big earthquakes in South Australia.
But we do get them on the account of fault lines.

Three times I've felt "the big one" (by our weak standard).

Once it felt like a super large tractor trailer truck drove past the house (one did not)

Second time, it felt like a large diesel engine locomotive vibration coming from the house (the person inside thought it was outside)

The third time, I felt my computer chair and the floor move in a wave pattern and I initially thought it was a mental illusion, but other folks confirmed #earthquake.

You may actually experience smaller earthquakes all the time, but mis-attribute them.

@catsalad

Crappy and crappy. Hope that helps

@catsalad for those in the UK not realising they can join in the fun…

https://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_uk_events.html

My answer is I didn’t feel a thing. Not sure the cats were bothered either.

@catsalad My first earthquake had its epicenter near the earth's surface and so it was different from my second major earthquake where the epicenter was deeper underground. The one in 1971 jerked the house sideways and effectively yanked the shelves away from anything set upon those shelves. We were lucky. Mom walked over the mess of fallen objects calling for our cat, who didn't say anything. Mom got to the kitchen and saw all the mess of flour and sugar and coffee and tea leaves and other emptied cupboard contents strewn over the kitchen floor, but there was one clear spot on the kitchen floor and there he sat, very dilated pupils, our wide-eyed Siamese Cat sat up straight and silent and entirely puzzled over what on earth we had done THIS time!

@catsalad
1. usually it is like being in your apartment and there is a thump, a Thump!, or maybe a Thumpetythump, like a truck ran into your building. It is over.
2. the word nonplussed was invented to describe how cats respond to earthquakes, and has two meanings. Both meanings apply to cats responding to earthquakes.

@catsalad Moved to Mexico City when I was 19 and experienced several, was always somewhat of a "cool" experience, the sound of the ground, the shaking, how my body felt literally shaken, the adrenaline. Then the September 19 2017 happened. I don't think I'll ever forget the sound of the buildings clashing against each other, the chaos, the fear in people's eyes, and seeing a building collapse in front of me. It was the longest and saddest walk home.

@catsalad
All.I felt was a thump in my back like I got shoved.
3.2 in Diamond Bar Ca.back.in.1990
One felt here in Maryland tecently was one big shove from a 4.8 in Jersey

@catsalad I was a teenager in Torrance in 1971, across the Los Angeles basin from San Fernando during the earthquake that year. It woke me up and my first thought was, "Earthquake! Save the cats!" I don't remember them bring disturbed by it, but then again I don't remember my parents bring disturbed by my logic that they could take care of themselves but the cats couldn't.

@catsalad Only been through three or four small ones. Our cat sat quietly swaying. The humans exited our wooden house on piers. Cat sat on walkway just swaying.

@catsalad i've enjoyed all mine. i've had one in the office (13 floors up) that was long/strong enough for us to all actually bother getting under our desks about it. our building is designed to move so... it really moved 😅 some coworkers were legit screaming. they needed looking after for a while.

short ones are over as soon as you realise they happened. like a truck hit the house or someone slammed a door that isn't there.

there's a moment when a short one becomes a long one, and you realise you simply have no control over what will come next. the world is moving. the house is shuddering like a car on a rough road or a learner is driving stick shift. so... you can either go with it or freak out.

the last super long "at home" one i remember, about 2am, i got up to check on my eldest across the hall, he was playing a DOTA or LOL ranked game so he was just riding it out, one hand on his monitor to stop it falling over like a rodeo star 🤣 unphased

@catsalad if they're mild (in the 2's say), you might think a big truck just drove down your street -- rumble and rattle.

@catsalad it depends on a bunch of factors:

What kind of building are you in
What kind of soil is it on
How big the earthquake itself is
How far away you are from the epicenter
What kind of terrain is between you and the epicenter

I've experienced a wide range of all of the above factors. The closer you are, the sharper the movements are. Being on fill or a dry lakebed is the worst, because it tends to magnify the movement; being on bedrock reduces it. Being in a modern skyscraper on higher floors really magnifies things, and the shaking can go on for several minutes, but it's more gentle swaying, albeit large motions.

But there's something scary and disorienting about terra firma no longer being so firma, regardless of the factors. Those other factors can make it scarier, of course, particularly if the quake is very large.

@catsalad they precog it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmOmIrsZQk0

@catsalad

the few "big" ones i was in when living in CA, it was like a huge truck driving by and making your whole house rattle.

my cats weren't fans, though the annual blue angel show, with practice strafings of SF, freaked them out more.

@catsalad I've never been in with in one with cats, but when I was in I slept through but my dog didn't any he shit on my bed and the smell woke me up

@catsalad had a little one a decade ago, or so (the kind that just rumble the walls a tiny bit like a heavy truck passing by, only stronger and lasting much longer). The cats soundly slept through, not giving a single fuck.
Birds outside went dead silent in the minutes preceding it, then loudly nervously peeped for a while after it was over.

@catsalad I've found it to be kinda like that feeling after you have been on an ocean ship for a long time then go back to solid ground, the ground and your legs just don't cooperate.

My first earthquake I found to be rather terrifying as a child cause the ground I had always trusted to be stable, wasn't. Through experience after that (living in California and Japan), it has really just become a non-issue.

For my cats...they just don't really care, though sometimes it seems they might know of earthquakes beforehand. Hard to tell if they are just hiding due to being cats, or hiding since they knew an earthquake would come, or not caring at all. I mean, they are cats! 😅

@catsalad I’ve experienced 3 minor quakes: one in Fresno, CA; the 2011 Virginia quake I felt in the office in charlotte, NC; and a small one in New England. My first thought for all of them was “Is that a semi rolling along?”, followed by “an earthquake?? Cool!”.

I’m sure if any of them had been anything remotely major, I would’ve freaked out

@catsalad I found it a very fascinating experience. Was in Japan for 10 days and had three bigger ones. First one on my first night. Just went to bed to sleep and it felt as if someone was dancing on my matress till I opened my eyes and saw the frames on the walls waving along to the shaking 🤣 my friend told me the dangerous ones are the ones jumping up and down. The one we felt was shifting from side to side so not dangerous 🤪

Another one hit while in was in Tokyo in a skyscraper shopping center. The clothes started swaying and the whole fucking building swayed under my feet. The japanes people didn't even pause or stop walking/talking because it's an everyday occurance ☠️🫠

Edit: no experience with cats xD

@catsalad

depends. for me, it's usually "wtf?....oh"

the cats only really care if it's a larger than usual one.

@catsalad its always confusing at first

@catsalad
I was living in Seattle years ago. There was a 6.8 or so. I remember running out of the house and standing on the street. Two things i remember.
Looking down the street, the road surface was rolling like waves in the ocean. The second was that I was standing still, but I was moving back and forth.

@catsalad I've only ever noticed one and it was fairly minor. It woke me up in the hotel I was in at the time, but I thought it was just loud drunk people being annoying and so went back to sleep. Woke up next morning to see quite a few messages from people who knew I was travelling asking me about it...

@catsalad unpleasant. I’ve been through quite a few here in NZ - including two large ones - one of those being the M7.8 2016 one.

Our house moved a lot, the force was enough to buckle our metal fencing in places and went on for around two minutes! Happened after midnight so was asleep… we still have unusable building in the capital due to that one - which happened in 2016… the cats however are generally unfazed by them, they can however tell they are coming somehow as they’ll all wake up and sit bolt upright then just go back to sleep after it passes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kaik%C5%8Dura_earthquake

@catsalad I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if a cat reacted like "bloody hell, what's going on? anyway, feed me "

@catsalad it can be like having a large truck driving near your building. Everything is vibrating.
It was a small one (no damage to building but strong enough to be noticed by people)

@catsalad our cat ignores them. our dogs gets confused - what is that rumbling and why did the wine bottles tip themselves over? as an adult only one has made me concerned enough to do something. i was at the theater with my ~9yo daughter. at first i thought someone bumped into the projector then realized "earthquake. big." picked up my daughter and started to the exit. the quake stopped by the time we got to the exit door. everyone kinda stood there for a beat then went back and sat down. they rewound a few minutes back and the show went on. my daughter remembers the movie (burton's alice in wonderland) but not the earthquake.

@catsalad it depends a lot on where you are and of the strength of the tremor. You can hear a rumble (not if you’re higher up in a building). You can feel the ground shifting. Once, in a 5th floor flat, I could feel the whole building swaying slightly and all the roof beams were making cracking noises. Not my best memory 😬

@catsalad when there was an earthquake in Seattle, (Very rare) our Maine Coon Raiden did not seem to care. Raiden also did not care about fireworks ect.

@catsalad

cats fall from trees during earthquakes, much like Florida lizards during freezes

@catsalad Only felt one, on the Isle of Man at the end of the 1980s.

A few weeks earlier I'd looked out of the office window and was deeply astonished to see a steam train go past, as I was a long way from the line and out of sight. It was on the back of a truck, and it was so heavy, the entire building rumbled slightly.

A month or so later, it happened again, slightly more so... but this time, there was no truck. It was the ground. It just rumbled like a very long 100 tonne truck drove past slowly.

@catsalad Small ones, you only notice the chandelier swinging. Big ones are like being on a ship on a stormy sea, noticable rocking/shaking, glasses clinking, cabinets opening, objects falling down, the noise can resemble thunder. Earthquakes also cause disembarkment syndrome, even months later. (The strongest one I experienced was 6.2 ML.)

@catsalad

Depends. I live about 100 yards from an active fault. Little ones are like somebody bumping into a wall or a truck going by. You can sleep through those. Big ones feel like a giant picked up the house and is shaking it.

My dogs do not care for the earthquakes and sometimes start howling after a big one.

@catsalad I was in a mold one in midwest united states and it was fine. It just felt like someone just shook my bed to wake me up.

Our cats seemed to be fine. This happen over 15 years ago though. Big earthquakes are rare where I live.

@catsalad I live in PH which recently got hit with 6.3Magnitude + Aftershocks that gets to 4.2-5.0Magnitude💔😢 I ddnt notice my cat jury behaving unusual as the earthquake struck,Found him in the study table after the 6.3 hit, I noticed his behaviour whenver Aftershocks will happen either its subtle or a bit shaky, Jury would be very vocal & then "High Alert" mode goes ON. After few minutes, Aftershock Alert news is being broadcasted..

@catsalad Even the Loma Prieta quake, the biggest I ever experienced, just felt like someone jumping on the floor really hard. Ever been in a raised house while an unbalanced washing machine is running? It’s like that. The sound is scarier than the movement to me; it’s a low, ominous rumbling.

@catsalad Southern Missouri had an earthquake not too long ago. No idea about cats, but the rooster didn’t react much. It was more interested in attacking me.

@catsalad I've only felt small tremors, they made the wind chimes rattle and gave me an uneasy feeling. In was a little like a truck thundering through the street, only more

@catsalad I am from Chile. Lived the 2010 earthquake at 300km from the epicenter. Is.... an experience, it was at night when everyone was sleeping (3:34am), first you can't walk straight as the sense of balance is completely gone, the first we noticed was the noise, like a train coming and in the worst of it you can actually feel the earthquake waves like a massive tsunami, is like being neck down on the ocean during a tidal wave. The sound of the house shaking and cracking was frightening. After that, your balance is still fucked, and the rush of adrenaline and dread is something else. You can watch some videos online of the event.

EDIT: My current kitty starts meowing before we feel the movement! is our personal earthquake detector.

@catsalad My two were fine: a very quick one in Malta and a 30s more exciting one ~20 floors up in a Tokyo hotel.

Tokyo: my then partner has just arrived from the UK and said "So what's an earthquake like?" and I said "Well ..." and it happened and I cooly finished "... quite like that!"... B^>

@catsalad can’t answer for cats because I was at work during the 2011 Virginia quake. At first I thought it was the garbage truck banging the dumpster to get all the trash out, then the widow blinds started banging against the window. Checked USGS site, and sure enough, it was a quake!

I have decided I'd rather not experience an earthquake if possible.

@catsalad we had a mag 5 in Thailand this year, at first I thought I was sick, suddenly nauseated and then heard my husband yell, it's an earthquake! The cat was non plussed, didn't even notice

@catsalad I did not see any cats at the time

@catsalad The only one I’ve experienced (in Morocco, 2023) was a terrible roaring noise that went on and on. I was alone in bed about 11pm and the bed shook forward and back - not side to side at all - over and over, seemingly for ages. All this time, my thoughts were in a loop that went something like, “Is this… an earthquake? It must be! But it can’t be…”. At no point did I think, “Holy crap! I should get out of this building!” I found that instead of fight or flight, I do freeze. Just pinned to that bed. It was only when it stopped that Tom was able to get a call through to me telling me to get outside.

Once we’d found each other we were directed by hotel staff to sit on sun loungers around the pool, well away from the buildings. There was an aftershock, it felt like a literal ripple, like someone flapping an extremely thick tablecloth. Super scary.

@catsalad Indoors is janglier than outdoors. Was in one last week outdoors & it was a jolt, with quite a bit of noise, but relatively soft. Indoors it’s always rumbly. This is what you learn living in California.

@catsalad

Small ones are like a big truck rumbling past your house.

Medium ones are like a big truck running head-on into another big truck outside your house.

Big ones are like the truck running directly into the site of the house.

Really big ones that last an extraordinarily long time are like this: https://youtu.be/mk68bZ701s0

Dunno about cats, they'd probably be able to walk around better than people, but would be more susceptible to falling debris.

@catsalad depends on how strong it can go from "woah, that was fun" to "oh gawd the world is ending".

In my experience cats do not like

@catsalad I don't like them - very unsettling (no pun intended)... 🫨 My cat reacted to a minor 4.x... 🙀

@catsalad Imagine if, instead of everything not shaking, it was. It's weird. Cats usually do not like them.

@catsalad

@catsalad I think @Undercat said one of her cats was a bit unsettled by it

@catsalad i was only in a minor quake, but i imagine it being like having a stroke without the pain or vomiting

@catsalad

One minute, you're doing your thing. The next? Everything around you starts moving. Depending on how close you're to the epicenter and how strong the quake is, things either vibrate or start moving side to side or side to side and up and down. Feels like a giant grabbed the building and is shaking it. If you're outside, you see everything shake, rattle, and roll. It's a little scary, but not terrible.

@catsalad just felt like... Shaking. I kinda heard it first. My tinnitus started acting up in a weird way, and a bit later there was a minor earthquake.
I was also in a separate earthquake, inside of an old building that was already structurally unsound. That time was a bit scary. Part of the ceiling caved in

@catsalad imagine everything start vibrating. Idk. Never been in an earthquake that I actually felt.

@catsalad
Disturbing AF, even a mild one.
Everything shakes back and forth slowly.

@catsalad Depends on the magnitude. For the lil ones, it goes like "Is that a big truck or a quake?" And then you check feeds to confirm.

For the big ones, it's an "oh-shit" then scramble to get yourself and your people to the safest location until it's over. Not a fun time.