Ottawa got a dose of California this afternoon. A 5.0 magnitude earthquake rolled us around this afternoon at 1:41 pm. Yes, we’re all safe and no, there was no damage beyond a few broken windows, hideous traffic jams and some soiled undergarments.
Californian readers are going “5.0? Meh! We use those to stir our lattes…” For us however, it was a bit of a surprise. We don’t normally get seismic events that are noticeable, even though we are in a large rift valley. The Ottawa Valley is part of the West Quebec seismic zone. You can actually stand on either side of the fault lines at various places around the Ottawa area, one foot on one geologic mass and one foot on another geologic mass.
Conceptually, the entire Ottawa Valley could drop a couple of feet or slip sideways a few inches and shake the whole metro area into dust, but the seismic area is reasonably stable, burping off the occasional rumble a few times a year to release the very moderate seismic pressures involved.
However, having an office building start to buck under your feet is a bit of alarming for most Ottawa inhabitants. Working right near the Parliament one thinks of very unpleasant acts of Citizens Behaving Badly involving Ryder rental trucks, fertilizer and fuel oil. At the same time, the Chinese President, Hu Jintao is in town and we all know how happy the Falun Gong and the Tibetans are about China.
Meanwhile, the Ottawa Ribfest is lined up along the downtown, a couple of dozen propane and wood-fired booths dispensing ribs, pulled pork and chicken. Most of my colleagues thought either a Ryder Rental-Cousin Timmy-Screw You Harper-G8-G20-Kiss-My-Ass blast, or one of the Ribfest rigs went “Foom!” Earthquake was about nineteenth on the list, at least until the second rumble that went on for ten seconds. By the fifth second, we’d settled on earthquake.
Moments later the fire alarm went off, followed a minute later with the the evacuate signal. Grab the backpack and out we go, several thousand folks clogging the sidewalk, trying to call home and wondering what the hell just happened. After a half-hour or so, things settle out. Some folks go back to work, others are done for the day.
That was it. Nothing catastrophic. Just unusual.
RoadDave 
In California we yearn for the big one to reduce the housing supply and drive the prices up to flipper levels. It is starting to appear that California has no other skills than real estate speculation.
As well, California has the largest per-capita consumption of sillicone, Restylane and Botox…