stephanie brail

I’m going to stick my neck out today and send out my first EARTHQUAKE ALERT!

You don’t have to be psychic or a geologist to know that at some point in the near future or soon enough, Southern California is going to have a big earthquake. It’s getting close to 20 years since the Northridge Quake of 94, so Los Angeles is due. I’ll go one step further.

My feeling is that something big may be gearing up to hit Southern California soon. How soon? I can’t say. But maybe any day now. And if I were in Southern California right now, I’d be making sure my earthquake supplies were ready – especially extra water and food.

Los Angeles was just hit today with a 3.4 – possibly a foreshock:

That doesn’t look so bad, does it? Well, take a look at Southern California from the state view:

Look at all that crazy activity going on! And let me tell you what – the map did not look like that prior to the Mexicali quake that hit on Easter of last year! Southern California was much less active.

Here’s the NON-psychic evidence for a big quake due soon:

1. See those clusters of little quakes in Southern California? Increased geological instability has been developing in the entire Southern California region due to the big Mexicali quake. I’m not making this up. Scientists have reported this.

2. When I first started observing the Southern California earthquake clusters after Mexicali last May, they were much smaller than the above graphic, closer to the border, and only hitting one or two small fault lines. In the past year, these little quakes have been moving up the state, jumping from fault line to fault line. I’m not imagining this – scientists have noted this phenomenon and have been monitoring the movement. (I wish I could find the article for you that I read this information in, but it’s long lost the bookmarks file of my last computer.)

3. Geologists have observed that when an earthquake happens, it will release tension in that particular part of the fault – however, the tension then just moves along the fault to a new part of the fault line. This is how they have been tracking a series of earthquakes in Turkey, and have determined that Istanbul will unfortunately be potentially next in line for a devastating quake.

4. Anytime there is a large quake in the world, it tends to destabilize other fault lines – even fault lines far away. The 9.0 in Japan likely destabilized the entire Ring of Fire region, which is perhaps also why we’ve just seen two volcanic eruptions in Mexico and Chile.

5. We’ve seen big quakes in the following areas of the Ring of Fire: Chile, then New Zealand, then Japan. Will North America follow suit? It may not be Southern California, granted. Some have suggested Alaska or the area of the Pacific Northwest may be next. But it would be a good idea to be prepared just in case.

Those are some very good scientific reasons why Southern California, and specifically, the Los Angeles, may be looking at a big quake soon.

So here’s my “psychic” reason for the alert:

I could be wrong, but I’ve been feeling lately that some sort of major quake in California is on its way – particularly to Southern California. I actually lived there for a long time and left last year, in part due to knowing a big quake was going to hit in the next few years. I was in the last nasty quake – I don’t need to be in the next one. I feel like it’s there, just waiting to happen.

Note: If there is a quake in Southern California soon, it may not yet be the “big” big one. I for some reason have felt for a while that there would be a “smaller” but somewhat damaging “big” quake prior to a really nasty one.

My concern in the long run is the San Andreas fault going off and then having a cascading effect along the fault line. If you look at that map of California above, you’ll see a big “X” where two faults meet, in the southern-central part of the state. There’s a little yellow box on it representing one small quake, the first quake I’ve seen on that X that I remember.

That X is the Tejon Pass, and that line running somewhat north to south is the San Andreas. When and if the BIG big one happens, I’m thinking it may be in that very area. Notice how relatively “calm” that area is compared to the rest of the state. That may actually be a bad sign. Furthermore, those clusters of quakes jumping up the fault lines from Mexico may be headed up towards that area – and when that area starts to rumble, it may be less forgiving.

The point with all this is as follows: Do not become complacent if you survive a relatively “big” quake in Southern California – make sure you are prepared for a possible one-two whammy.

And that reminds me: Japan may not be out of the woods yet in terms of large, devastating aftershocks either!

Hang onto your hats!