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RE: San Francisco Bay Area Geology: The Hayward Fault Zone
I grew up in Sonoma County, a little north of San Francisco. I've felt some pretty bad ones living in California my whole life. There was one in Napa county a couple years ago that was pretty bad. I was 13 when the Loma Prietta quake happened in 1989. We were about 60 miles north of San Francisco but the streets were still rippling like the ocean. Pretty intense to say the least. I was reading a recent article that says the subduction zone off the coast is even more dangerous than the San Andreas Fault. Expecting a magnitude 9 or greater when it shifts. Scary
The Napa quake was the one I felt. I was in Walnut Creek/Pleasant Hill area at the time. It was late at night and I was laying in bed awake, but I jumped out of the bed in an instant. My windows were slamming and closing and it felt like I was on a boat. I grew up on the west coast of Florida so I knew the feeling. Scared the living daylights out of me, but talk about an adrenaline rush. After that, I felt a few small 3.0 – 4.0's, which were interesting, but nothing like the Napa one. To think that was only a 6.1... The subduction zone you mentioned is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone and it's definitely potent. I wrote an article pertaining to it here.
I was asleep when it happened. By the time I woke up I was already up and running for the door. I couldn't even fathom what a 9.0 earthquake would feel like. That 6.1 felt pretty huge and I was still in a different county. Stay safe down there, I'll be following to see your new blogs.