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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.

@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 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