L.A. Earthquake 4.4 Magnitude

My toddler didn't sleep very well last night. He woke up at midnight, then at 1am so I went in there and comforted him back to sleep. After that, I went back to bed but was rudely awakened at 4:04am by some shaking of the house. The Pico Rivera earthquake scared me and it sounded like a slow rumble which gradually got louder and then subsided. It felt like about 5 seconds but really scared me. I got up and went to my toddlers' room to check on him, but then it stopped (he didn't even wake up). It took me a while to go back to sleep because it reminded me of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Flash back to 1994, Sunday night at some apartment complex off the USC campus. That is where I was living at the time with 4 other roommates. We were partying that night because Monday was Martin Luther King day and we didn't have classes. I think I passed out that night around 1am and then woke up at 4:30am to the Northridge earthquake. We were on the third floor of the building and it literally felt like someone was shaking the entire building. It lasted a long time and the tremors lasted for a couple days. Books were falling of the shelf and lamps were falling, quite an experience especially after having one too many beers.

A few days later we went to Northridge to visit a friend of mines' house and the surrounding areas. The damage was unbelievable. 3 story parking structures crumbled down to rubble. Apartment complexes that collapsed and nothing visible of the first floor. A very shocking site.

I think the moral of the story is to beware of earthquakes at 4 in the morning...