Friday, November 30, 2018

If you have ever been in a really large Earthquake: PTSD can be a problem

I was listening to a reporter on TV tell her story of being about 10 years old in the Northridge quake in California and not being able to sleep for a year after this happened to her.

I am grateful this wasn't my experience. MY worst earthquake luckily happened when I was already 23 years old in 1971 in southern California.

This was the San Fernando Valley earthquake:
The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California.

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The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California.
Local date‎: ‎February 9, 1971
Duration‎: ‎12 seconds
Max. intensity‎: ‎XI (Extreme)
Landslides‎: ‎1,000+
Earthquake · ‎Surface faulting · ‎Damage · ‎Transportation

But, for some reason today I felt myself sort of going into shock along with the Alaska folks who are living with this initial shock of 7.0 combined with aftershocks many times above 6.0 which is still a pretty strong shaking and will throw pictures off the wall and glasses and glassware and silverware off the table.

A Man today said something useful about earthquakes. He said, "Just imagine the worst shaking you have ever felt on a plane and that's what an earthquake is like from about a 6.0 to an 8.0 or 9.0.

But, the difference is in the plane you usually have a seat belt on and in an Earthquake you don't so you are being hit with debris from the ceiling and off of walls and hopefully your ceiling doesn't collapse on you or a window doesn't blow out and cut you. 

So, today the rains have stopped (at least for today) and so I got up and swept all the pine needles and other debris from the rain off my deck to try to gather my wits after being triggered in a PTSD way by the Alaska Earthquake which (For whatever the reason) took me back to 1971 when I thought I was going to die in the 1971 earthquake. It was about the same size at this one with similar damage to southern California then.

The other quake that scared me but I didn't think I was going to die was a 5.0 in Orange County when I was visiting my cousin. My then 5 year old daughter was in a pool swimming on a float and a 5.0 earthquake suddenly hit. I ran out scared to death for my daughter in the pool during an earthquake and told her to swim to the center of the pool. She asked me why the water was going out of the pool and sloshing in all directions including a foot of water coming over my feet near the pool. I told her it was an earthquake and she needed to stay in the center of the pool so she wouldn't be thrown against the side of the pool and be knocked out against the hard edge of the pool. Luckily the pool was big enough so she was safe doing this.
My daughter is now 22 so this is a while ago now.

The point being that if you live anywhere from Southern California like I did in 1971 and still do to Alaska you need to prepare for this sort of thing because it isn't IF it is only When you will be in something like happened today in Alaska.

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