I was visiting Seattle in the 60's when it had a big quake. I was in a very old house and the jiggling of the weights inside of windiws made the whole thing sound like an old fashioned train. My.mother could barely stand up to walk to the room I was sleeping in. I have been in quakes since but none that big.

1989 was bad. I knew someone living there whose house was so badly damaged they walked away. Eventually rebuilt, sold it and got out.

I've never been in a quake strong enough to really have it click "earthquake", although there was an incident over a decade ago where the microwave oven, which due to the poor architectural design of the place, hangs from the ceiling with some chains. I noticed it swinging slightly but didn't feel anything, kind of like maybe from a very heavy wind gust.

But it turned out there had been a gigantic explosion at a (fortunately) unmanned gas processing plant about 45 miles away about a couple of minutes before. It might have been such a shock wave through the ground that it set up some vibrations. I found that out a couple of hours later, and kind of connected the dots then.

I remember hearing a lot of discussion about it on the 2 meter band local repeater as it unfolded, then got home and turned on the news. Of course the phrase that was first to surface was what everyone had been primed to expect decades ago - "The Big One?"

It's one of the reasons that California was a "no go" area since I was little - because I'd always heard it was going to fall into the Pacific at any time. Then of course I learned about tsunamis, soil liquefaction, and that while plate tectonics meant the sliding into the Pacific would take longer than modern humans have been walking the earth, the 1906 earthquake was just a "preview of the coming attractions - now in Cinemascope and infra surround sound".

So I wasn't going to even consider investing in an area overdue for "a whole lotta shakin' goin' on" and figured anyone was a fool for living there, or especially for building there.

And of course it was just a matter of which flattened the area first - The Big One or the Soviet nuclear missiles. And I go - "nope - not going to go to a place that is already doomed".

Yes, but it never fell into the ocean and the world never ended.

You ever hear of using a level and pieces if wood to straighten a microwave out? What happens when the microwave works on a counter or table?
There are times when hearing about your home is like hearing about a carnival "fun house". You should get a nice trailer house and put your stick built house on display for a fee.

Hmmm

Well there were the shadows of people on my bedroom wall that weren't actually there. They didn't utter any annoying sounds though.

I did have a job inspecting status of empty cavities in a coal mine. Nothing like shutting off your cap lamp to take a nap on break and listen to the timbers creek and crack then have one split in half from the weight. That sure woke me up.

Then there was the time in another coal mine where the floor in the drift raised up to  pin a continuous miner machine and in doing so saved us from being squished.

But the worst sound I heard was when the earth made a methane fart while your busy with your work. It's a sound that's very explainable as to why when a new hire would think it's okay to sneak a cigarette  underground to light up, and get his nicotine fix, he would be beat to a pulp. 

I made my concerns into protests and was told to shut up. So I left this place 6 months before the explosion happened. Watched it on the evening news like everybody else.

All my sounds heard have been real. And the shadows  of people on the wall are always polite but are always silent.

Hopefully people  at this forum will finally understand why I hate the lethal effects of corruption and why we can't just brush it off in a lazy choice of ignorance.

Oh, the problem was just there was not enough countertop space for the microwave, so it was more convenient to just create space above the breakfast bar by hanging it from the ceiling.

BWArtist said:

But the worst sound I heard was when the earth made a methane fart while your busy with your work. It's a sound that's very explainable as to why when a new hire would think it's okay to sneak a cigarette underground to light up, and get his nicotine fix, he would be beat to a pulp.

Yeah, shifting rock and earth and releases of flammable gas are pretty dang real indicators that something is wrong.

I remember one afternoon, hearing sirens in the distance, then suddenly what sounded like a couple of gunshots a few blocks away, and then a whole bunch more sirens warbling and positively flying down the street about 1/4 mile from the office.

So of course I head out the door to hear better, and saw this gigantic plume of black smoke billowing up from I-20. The smoke got heavier and then I could see flame, which over the top of other structures had to have been a good 100 feet high. Then another very huge fireball, followed with a very noticeable delay by a very loud bang. More wailing sirens, these from at least 4 different fire trucks racing to the scene.

I went up onto the roof to get a better look, and saw stalled traffic going both ways backed up for several miles, and flashing lights everywhere down at the Interstate, heard more sirens, saw yet another pumper and a large tanker heading towards the scene. Another group of loud bangs that lagged big bursts of flame by just about 2 seconds, and then a big fireball that left a mushroom cloud and a double bang.

There continued to be explosions for quite a while, and whatever was going on clearly had a lot of fuel going on. Then just when you thought it couldn't get more intense, there was one more big explosion, and finally you could see the black smoke slowly starting to turn more gray and less intense. This went on for a good 30 minutes until at last the smoke was just a small plume of white.

I'd carried the 2 meter rig with me, which will listen out of band to the 155 mhz spectrum that includes fire dispatch, and tactical channels. There was plenty of chatter but it was quite a while before I heard anyone mention what was actually burning, on the air. To add to the drama, in the middle of the whole spectacle near the beginning, from the roof, I heard the whop-whop-whop of a helicopter, which landed about 1/4 mile away from the inferno. It was the distinctive red LifeFlight, which then took off again after only about 60 seconds on the ground. Instead of heading across town to the main hospital, it continued to climb and accelerate to the far north towards Lubbock.

Found out later, an 18 wheeler had caught fire. The drivers barely made it out after pulling over and getting stopped, and one was severely burned. The explosions were the burning tires blowing one by one. There was footage on the news that night which showed the rig totally burned to the ground where it stopped halfway up the overpass.

Part of the fire was the asphalt / tarmac on the highway surface itself, and it partly melted the guard rail as well.

What an interesting way to solve your priblem? Can you post a picture sometine,