Since I've been living in Southern CA all my life, I have experienced several earth quakes in my 59 years. The worst one was the Landers/Big Bear back in 1992. Why?
My wife and 2 kids were camping just below Big Bear on that day. The Landers quake hit, a 7.6, which we felt even though we were about 50 miles or so from the epicenter. Since we were camping on the ground with sleeping bags, we felt it big time. Everyone woke up including the kids. There were literally hundreds of small and large after shocks that followed. It felt like the ground was on ball bearings.
So we decided to make breakfast, eat, and leave. After we were cleaning up, I was walking to the shower/rest rooms when the Big Bear earth quake hit. A 6.7 magnitude. It knocked me on the ground. While on the ground, I was looking at the pine trees which were all around the camp site, and all the trees looked line tuning forks - shaking violently. This lasted for about 30 seconds. After the 30 seconds, I could here people screaming and rock slides in the background.
I get to the campsite and tell the wife, kids, and another family we were with to pack up to leave now ASAP before any more possible quakes. During this time, we had several after shocks as high as 5 on the scale. Once we were almost done, a sheriff shows up and says we can't go anywhere as the roads are blocked with rocks and debris. So we sat and waited.
About 2 hours later, the same sheriff shows up and says there is only one way off this mountain. We must go through Big Bear, but we have to drive slowly as the roads are littered with boulders. One we got to Big Bear, we saw the damage done.
Got home and had no damage to the house.
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