First CONVID19 And Now An Earthquake

[Mark Blatter]

At 7:09 this morning I was reviewing the news on-line when my house started to shake and sway. Took me a second, but pretty quick I realized we were having an earthquake. It was a 5.7 about 15 miles away. No damage to my house, but they closed the Salt Lake City airport for about 6 hours, 70,000 were without power for a few hours and we even had a chemical spill which generated a cloud that slowly drifted north...fortunately over the great sale lake where it dissipated.

A number of older apartments had to be evacuated as they are now unsafe, mostly older folks, who are now being moved into the local high school. the good news is the school was closed, the bad news is there is no way to maintain 'social distancing' in an emergency shelter.

Nothing like having an earthquake in the middle of a pandemic. I am waiting for the tornado tomorrow as that will be the perfect trifecta.

Oh, and there have been 50+ aftershocks, the strongest at 4.6.

[Paul F Franklin]

keep an eye out for locusts and frogs....

Glad you survived unscathed, hope it stays that way!

[Doug Dawson]

keep an eye out for locusts and frogs....

Glad you survived unscathed, hope it stays that way!

Time to watch "Magnolia" again! :^)

[Frederick Skelly]

I'm glad you got through it ok, Mark. I hope the people impacted can somehow get through it too.
We are with you.
Fred

[Brett Luna]

I can relate, Mark. It hardly seems like it's been more than 2½ years since our 7.0M quake. We had many thousands of aftershocks and they kept us on edge for a while but subside they did and before long you hardly look around for a table to dive under. I'm glad to hear you didn't suffer injury or damages. Hoping the best for everyone there.

[Tyler Bancroft]

keep an eye out for locusts and frogs....

Glad you survived unscathed, hope it stays that way!

The locusts have been a problem in Africa and Asia all year - too late...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-17/-our-children-will-starve-say-pakistan-farmers-as-locusts-breed

[Jim Koepke]

Glad to hear all is okay with you after the quake. Out here on the west coast we have them all the time and if they aren't over a 4 or 5 they tend to go unnoticed.

When we go into town one of the first things we do when we get down to the river is look to the east to see if it is clear enough to see Mount Saint Helens. It has kind of a flat top since it blew back in 1980. That was 28 years before the wife convinced me to move up here.

jtk

[Kev Williams]

Yup, pretty freaky. We're about 18 miles from the epicenter. Before it got going good, a few of our windows started rattling, woke us right up. Wife says 'is that the wind?' Then all hell broke loose. Our house is about 90% engraving shop, the basement has 50 years of stuff on shelves everywhere. I was waiting to hear it crashing to the ground, but miraculously it all stayed put. Had a few knicknacks tip over. Worst casualty for us was the rattled nerves. An adrenaline junkie I'm NOT!

[Mark Blatter]

Glad to hear all is okay with you after the quake. Out here on the west coast we have them all the time and if they aren't over a 4 or 5 they tend to go unnoticed.



jtk

In Utah, there have been 16 quakes over 5.5 in the past 170 years, so for here, it was a pretty big deal. Thanks all for your well wishes.