My dad used to call this the ‘land of shake and bake.’
And on Sunday August 26, 2012 the name fit. Highs were in the 100s. And the USGS say it’s the biggest southern California earthquake swarm since 1981!
This map only shows the quakes bigger than 2.0 around Brawley, California as of early Monday morning. The largest as of this post? Magnitude 5.5 – and there’s been some minor damage to 1930s era buildings according to the LA Times.
Brawley is south of Palm Springs and southeast of San Diego near the Mexican Border. People in both cities reported feeling some of the quakes.
According to the USGS, these earthquakes are happening between the San Andreas & Imperial faults like they did in swarms during the 1970s and most recently in 1981. These swarms have never, in the past, created earthquakes bigger than 5.8 magnitude. And they’ve never triggered the ‘big one.’
But it does make you wonder, doesn’t it?
And now I remember a story my dad told me after one of his work trips to Brawley. He was eating dinner when a 5-point-something earthquake hit.
He dropped under the table like you’re supposed to, worried it could be the big one. He was relieved he made it.
But as soon as the earthquake was over, the locals were laughing and joking and yelling out their best guesses on the quake’s magnitude like it was a sport!
Ahhh, the land of shake and bake. The name really makes sense…
That story about your dad reminded of when I lived on Guam; we used to try to guess the magnitude there as well. But there were some BIG quakes there (a 7.8 one woke me up early one morning)!