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#20814 03/01/01 09:15 PM
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Yes! Mc Phee is one of the reason why i subscribed to The New Yorker. The quality has changed--even i once found a typo/spelling error-- and I am almost always blind to them! But every once in a while they still have a really good piece.


#20815 03/02/01 02:48 AM
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Bean, Father Steve lives practically IN Seattle, but he is fine. Our friend Geoff, 100 miles away, felt it. Our other WA friend lives too far away and did not feel it.

From what I've been given to understand, New Zealand is pretty much smallish "islands" of solidity, in between a
network of fault lines. Terror. That's why, though I would love to visit San Francisco, I would not live there--I'm convinced that at least a third of the state of California is going to slide into the ocean, and I don't want to be there when it does! Of course, southwest Kentucky is near enough to the New Madrid (that's MADrid)
fault line that when it goes, we'll be hurtin' for certain.
But it is dead at the moment (Hi, C.K.), and we've only had two feel-able earthquakes in Louisville in my lifetime.

I watched part of the CNN broadcast during the aftermath.
Whoever this lady was, she absolutely deadpanned this line,
while displaying the list of past bad quakes: "This is how things shake out".


#20816 03/02/01 04:57 AM
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Greetings from the other side of the Ring of Fire . (It always sounds as if there should be the odd Valkyrie flying around but if one is I haven't seen her - the Austrian lady at work has short hair which keeps changing colour and no helmet.) We had another big earthquake just off the coast of Sumatra not so long ago. They were expecting a tsunami but it didn't materialise. Earthquakes seem to have a habit of happening at night these days and I sleep right through them. (Put the TV on or start chatting outside my window and I wake up immediately, but an earthquake [shrug]). We've also got two volcanoes that look as if they're about to go off any minute -- Merapi (near Yogyakarta) and Anak Krakatau (better known in English as Krakatoa).

Bingley


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#20817 03/02/01 07:39 AM
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Our friend Geoff, 100 miles away, felt it.

Gosh, Jackie, I didn't realise that the quake moved us that close to Seattle! Well, anyway, we felt about a 4.5 rolling quake here in Portland. Kinda like going to the county fair, but free of charge. I'm wondiering how many lovers were -er- um, well, occupied as lovers at the moment it hit? I can just hear them saying, "Oh, -----, you made the earth move for me!" And just imagine all the politicians hollering, "It's not my fault!"


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Sorry, Geoff. I thought it seemed odd, but I took CNN's word for it when they said it was felt 100 miles away in
Portland. SHLIU. (Should Have---.)

you made the earth move for me--Oh, Geoff-
this had me literally kicking my feet from laughing!
Oh, you are a hoot and a half!




#20819 03/02/01 04:50 PM
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Well, I suppose this is my chance to tell my earthquake story.

When I was in the Army, 1963-65, I was stationed in Verona, Italy. My wife came over (at our expense) and our first son was born there. Due to the Status of Forces Agreement in those days, when because of the prominence of the Italian Communist Party, both the Italians and the Americans wanted to keep the size of U.S. bases to a minimum, we, like many other personnel, did not live in Army housing, but on the local economy. We had a brand new apartment on the first floor front (American 2nd floor), which is the most desirable location, in a new building on the edge of Verona, not far from the 10th century church of San Zeno. Down the street was an Italian armored base (the same caserma where Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law was shot).

You never saw anything of the Italian soldiers in the tank base, as there was a wall and lots of trees around it. The only way you knew it was there was that once every week or so, they would run a couple dozen tanks out, go down the street, around somewhere and return the other way an hour or so later. When they went down the main street (we were on a small street about 50 feet behind it), there was a low roaring sound and the floor would vibrate from the treads rolling over the paving.

One Saturday afternoon, after lunch, I was in the bathroom; on the throne, if you will excuse the mention. I began hearing a low rumbling sound, felt the floor (and throne) vibrating and realized the building was swaying slightly. I called out to my wife, "What are the tanks doing out this time of day?" She replied, "There aren't any tanks -- everything is shaking! It must be an earthquake!" The only thought which went through my head was, when they dig me out of the rubble, there I'll be with my pants down around my ankles!

It only lasted a minute or so and was a very minor affair, but it taught me something about being ready for the end at any time. This is akin to our parents' and grandparents' advice that you should always have clean underwear on, in case you should be in an accident.


#20820 03/02/01 04:58 PM
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Call me Martini, I was stirred, not shaken, by the Seattle earthquake.

"Ring of Fire" is a journalists' term which the geologists have grabbed with both hands - something has to make plate tectonics sexy. Interestingly, I was taught Wegener's theory of plate tectonics in geography at school as fact, and it was only comparatively recently that I learned that it had not been accepted by everyone at the time.

Jackie posited that New Zealand was "islands of solidity". Nope. The fault line runs through the middle of the house. As Musick stated, my office straddles the main fault, the equivalent, and just as active, of the San Andreas fault on the eastern side of the PacRim. My house sits high above and slightly, only slightly, back from the same fault plus an active subsidiary fault. We get at least ten noticeable earthquakes a year.

When the "big one" comes, as we are promised, most of Hutt City will disappear below the surface of the ground through liquefaction - alluvial deposits will become as liquid as water, and Hutt City is built on a flood plain. My only consolation is that the vulcanologists and seismologists have recently faithfully promised that when that happens, all of the dormant volcanoes on which Auckland is built will blow their stacks and replace the whole city with a nice, fresh, steaming lava field.



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When I called my mom to make sure everything was OK with her in Edmonds (a northern suburb of Seattle, roughly 65 miles from the epicenter), I gave her the perfect opportunity to respond to my straight line... "So what are you going to have for dinner?"

She was supposed to say "Shake & Bake!"


#20822 03/02/01 05:14 PM
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Felt a shake when at Clark Air Base near Mt Pinatubo which
-- much later -- erupted and buried the base under ash.

BTW the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant on the New Hampshire coast is on a fault line. And yes, they knew it before and during the construction. A concerned citizen's group told the NRC representatives at a public hearing!
Can you believe it ??!! On second thought it's only too easy to believe.
wow
NRC = a federal agency : Nuclear Regulatory Commission


#20823 03/02/01 05:44 PM
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NRC = a federal agency : Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The same people who approved of NY State's Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant on a small fault line!


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