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@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.