It was not in the least terrifying and actually a big yawn; no known damage or injuries; "near San Jose" is inaccurate, it was 14km east of San Jose up the (fairly sparsely-populated) foothills near Alum Rock, 6.9 km depth, 37.311°N 121.677°W, inside Joseph D. Grant Park, zipcode 95140, total population only a tiny 191. So, remote, not urban and nothing like all those San Andreas movies. We felt the floor ripple for a couple of seconds and that was all. All transit is still running, just at reduced speeds (standard practice just in case there's a big aftershock, which there almost never is).
You want to worry about something that's actually broken, then worry about whether the US MNT will get it together to call up leading goalscorer Jordan Pefok by 13 Nov deadline for the World Cup. Now that's worth losing sleep over. Or worry about Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico reconstruction from Hurricane Ian; Cuba got it bad.
PPS: in that area, Mt Hamilton (4265') and Lick Mill Observatory are worth a visit. And over west in Menlo Park visitors can visit the USGS station for free, that's a very fun and educational thing to do.
This comes off a bit as minimizing/dismissing concern of the next big one, and also seems to be expressing disappoint that this one wasn’t more exciting instead of being “a big yawn; no known damage or injuries.”
Nonsense, I live in Silicon Valley for 23 years now, this has nothing whatsoever to do with "the next big one", today's one was purely a 5.1 in a remote sparsely-populated area up the hills inside a county park with no reported damage or injuries, population only 191 and they hardly even have any two-storey buildings inside the entire park, not that those were reported damaged either. By the way, IIUC from geologists it's actually good and healthy to have frequent small earthquakes to blow off pressure and avoid becoming the "next big one", hence today's non-event is good news not bad news. I actually showed you multiple ways to instantly read the USGS data (coords, intensity, depth, population, total lack of buildings higher than two stories) to understand that this was a non-event not the "next big one", not even in the neighborhood. Technical literacy matters, sensationalism seriously doesn't.
Today's non-event was actually a Good Thing in that it also gives us yet another occasion to calibrate earthquake early-warning sensors, to stay prepared for any actual serious earthquake, which this wasn't.
I also said nothing whatsoever about "excitement" or "disappointed", so do not misrepresent me. I did imply that media is increasingly sensational (which it is) and lazily skewed towards merely collating cellphone "eyewitness reports" from places with 4G coverage, without making any semi-objective comparison to the rest of the planet; and I correctly pointed out that zero people were affected here in SJ today whereas 11 million Cubans were affected by Hurricane Ian [0], to pick one obvious example. I also know some friends-of-friends whose house was severely damaged by the 11/2020 Marikina, Manila floods/Typhoon Vamco/Ulysses [1] (98 deaths, 19 missing, 360K rescued, ~43000 houses damaged).
Also, a magnitude 6.2-6.5 struck rural northern Luzon, Philippines earlier today [2], no reported damage or injuries [3], but noone's mentioning that.
From that It’s clear you didn’t intend to minimize earthquakes in general which is good, it was just a matter of not the best wording/phrasing.
“Big yawn” is a loaded word:
It was not in the least terrifying and actually a big yawn; no known damage or injuries; …
Dismissing earthquakes:
nothing like all those San Andreas movies. …
Minimizing risk: in case there's a big aftershock, which there almost never is.
Comparing earthquakes to sporting events:
You want to worry about something that's actually broken, then worry about whether the US MNT will get it together to call up leading goalscorer Jordan Pefok by 13 Nov deadline for the World Cup
Experts believe a major quake in the Bay Area is “likely” (>=6.7) by 2032 per the usgs
It was already clear from my first post; you could have simply asked questions, instead of claiming you knew my intent and posting wrong assumptions.
The topic here was never "the next big one" or "major future event on the Hayward and San Andreas Faults for the next 30 years". If you want to start a separate HN thread discussing either of those, you're free to. This ain't it.
I actually dug up the USGS report to cite the epicenter, depth, intensity to teach people here basic literacy to make them immune from sensationalist reports without context. I showed what zipcode was affected and correctly stated how its population is almost zero and has no tall structures. Hence, "big yawn" is ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶l̶o̶a̶d̶e̶d̶, it's a 120% accurate characterization of an earthquake miles up the foothills inside a county park. I'm not going to misrepresent those facts. I can't see why anyone else would.
̶M̶i̶n̶i̶m̶i̶z̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶r̶i̶s̶k̶ Correctly stating that the risk of aftershock on today's event was minimal, and even in the tiny likelihood there had been one, given the original 5.1 caused zero reported damage, a (say) 4.6 aftershock would likely cause... zero damage. Zipcode 95140 is not downtown SJ or SF or LA.
To do otherwise would be to distort the facts on today's non-event into some emotionally-driven narrative that minimizes other actually serious events which actually resulted in deaths, injuries, destroyed houses, power outages; why should we distort the facts like that? It's actively harmful.
Sure, people can be needlessly frightened by sensationalist media reports, while simultaneously ignoring other natural disasters which flattened countries. Surely that's a trend we should fight against, yes; not contribute to?
> Experts believe a major quake in the Bay Area is “likely” (>=6.7) by 2032 per the USGS
That was never the topic of this thread, also many of us who already all knew that a decade ago. So why try to hijack this thread with that? By all means start a separate thread to discuss it, and I'll contribute constructively over there.
̶C̶o̶m̶p̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶a̶r̶t̶h̶q̶u̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶p̶o̶r̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ Comparing distorted sensationalism around non-events, to other contemporary events, including other natural disasters: "Or worry about Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico reconstruction from Hurricane Ian; Cuba got it bad." Even failing to accurately identify the epicenter, intensity and depth (facts which are typically available within a few minutes on USGS.gov) actively pander to that sensationalism; I posted them; you haven't discussed them once.
To summarize: today's non-event in 95140 caused zero deaths, zero injuries and zero damage; compared to others that actually impacted people and continue to over a month later, like Hurricane Ian. The earthquake early-warning systems worked as intended and that experience makes us stronger for the future. (By comparison, PG&E-started fires and electricity outages have caused far more disruption this year than earthquakes (:zero), and again that's a major political issue currently in California, not this.)
Almost any other minor media story is more worthy than this one, this in particular on a day with multiple huge stories (foreign and domestic) worthy of coverage. Pick any other story worth being covered more, to replace the US soccer one.
> Correctly stating that the risk of aftershock on today's event was minimal
We’ll this is terminologically correct due to that fact that if a stronger one follows then the initial one is a foreshock and the stronger one they prepared for is not an aftershock but the main event.
Anyway, I gave unsolicited feedback. Reject it or embrace it, no matter.
You're intentionally misrepresenting me: I clearly said:
> You want to worry about something that's actually broken, then worry about whether the US MNT... _Or worry about Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico reconstruction from Hurricane Ian; Cuba got it bad._
So, we already established within a handful of minutes that zero Californians were affected, but 12 million Cubans, or many thousands of Haitians or Puerto Ricans. Yet we're wasting time debating the California non-event instead of any other thing that actually matters. Or even, at absolute minimum, teaching people the technial literacy to quickly understand that the CA earthquake had no impact, and thus to resist sensationalism. It was extremely clear from the original that that was my point.
To state the same point another way: even (say) tonight's Fetterman-Oz debate (PA Senate race) will have more permanent impact on people's lives. Or, Hurricane Ian. Like I said.
You want to worry about something that's actually broken, then worry about whether the US MNT will get it together to call up leading goalscorer Jordan Pefok by 13 Nov deadline for the World Cup. Now that's worth losing sleep over. Or worry about Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico reconstruction from Hurricane Ian; Cuba got it bad.
USGS.gov has a page up near-instantaneously with the details including crowdsourced reports of perceived intensity by location, as they always do: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc73799091...
PPS: in that area, Mt Hamilton (4265') and Lick Mill Observatory are worth a visit. And over west in Menlo Park visitors can visit the USGS station for free, that's a very fun and educational thing to do.