Not a TV network, not a newspaper, not a wire service, I found out on Twitter from Sean Percival (@Percival) who I follow, though I forget why!
Computers do a great job of keeping records. That’s why I know it was 2:27 AM EDT when I sent,
Seeing tweets from SoCal of possible earthquake. Nothing on USGS site yet.
Not a TV network, not a newspaper, not a wire service, I found out on Twitter from Sean Percival (@Percival) who I follow, though I forget why!
Quake?
That’ll get your attention.
Next up was Ken Levine (@KenLevine), baseball broadcaster, former disk jockey (he was radio’s Beaver Cleaver), Emmy award winning writer for M*A*S*H and other shows.
Might have felt an aftershock. Since I don’t have THX and even if I did, the TV was off. I’m guessing aftershock.
By this time USGS’s automated system had spit out a series of web pages. It was listed at magnitude 4.4 (since revised to 4.5) in Yorba Linda, home of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, in the OC.
The quake took place at 2:23:34 EDT. Percival’s tweet is time stamped 2:24!
USGS doesn’t predict quakes, but they do predict damage! A computer model, PAGER (Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response) quickly assessed the situation. There was some worry, but not much. There was a 65% probability damage would be under $1 million, 95% it would be under $10 million.
Calculations for loss of life were similar. PAGER calculated a 76% chance of one fatality of less, 100% fewer than ten would die.
This time of day the cable news networks were rerunning their primetime lineup. Nothing. Even when Fox News cut-in for a scheduled live brief, nothing!
At 2:43 AM EDT I tweeted,
Fox News does live news update and doesn’t include quake. Seriously? Back to recorded stuff.
As was the case when Sully landed in the Hudson and with much of the Arab Spring, Twitter was there first. Studio based news wasn’t there at all!
I spoke with my Hollywood based daughter a few minutes ago. She and Roxie were on the floor when the earth moved. She felt it! Her first. If Roxie felt it she showed no signs.
Stef felt an aftershock (aka – another earthquake) within the last half hour.