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@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

@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.