Earthquake Info Needed

October 15, 2006 11:54 AM

Hawaii has had an earthquake. I need some info sources for a friend there who is still able to get thru (to NJ) by phone. Toss me anything useful you've got and I'll do a quick sort and pass on whatever she needs. Many thanks in advance!
posted by realjanetkagan to Science & Nature (9 answers total)

There were three small earthquakes off of Kailua-Kona on the big island.

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/hi/

My parents' power went out and called me to check out anything I could find. AFAIK, there's a shor article on CNN.com and the Hawaiian Electric Company website is down.
posted by harrumph at 12:06 PM on October 15, 2006

Well, 6.3 isn't gigantic but I wouldn't call it small per se, either. I'm not sure what kind of information you're looking for?

Here is the USGS page that shows the earthquake and all the little aftershocks. You can click on the square and get all kinds of info. Depth, type of quake, shake maps, all the good stuff.
posted by Justinian at 12:53 PM on October 15, 2006

CNN says there are no tsunami warnings.
posted by mathowie at 12:57 PM on October 15, 2006

Response by poster: harrumph --- geez, aside from usgs, I'm not finding anything either. My friend Martha, a veteran of California quakes, called the strength of this one within two points of what USGS is now reporting (and she laid in water). She says the local gov is claiming the power outage is a result of the torrential downpour that was going on before the quake. She also says she doubts that because of the timing.

Seems to me that if there were going to be a tsunami, it would have happened by now. Cross fingers, knock wood.

I still can't find a map that will show me the epicenter. But this is just me being curious and wondering if maybe there's about to be a new island in the Hawaiian chain.

Hope your folks are okay and get their power back soon.
posted by realjanetkagan at 1:02 PM on October 15, 2006

Type "hawaii" into Google News.

They keep updating with the latest feeds. Here's an article from half an ahour ago. No tsunami warning. There may be aftershocks.
posted by vacapinta at 1:07 PM on October 15, 2006

Response by poster: Hey, Matt, we crossed in the post. (I'm slow at the best of times and slower when I'm trying to track stuff down.) I initially found a tsunami warning, but that got downgraded almost instantly to "high waves." Martha assured me she was on high ground but who knew how high was high?

Truth is, when Martha asked for whatever I could find, I hit the blue here, figuring everything she'd want to know would be there already---with pictures. I guess earthquakes are old hat these days .

I hope you don't mind that I asked here.
posted by realjanetkagan at 1:25 PM on October 15, 2006

I would have thought Metroblogging Hawaii would have some details, but there's nothing there at the moment.
posted by krisjohn at 5:52 PM on October 15, 2006

First post about the quake is up there now.

Looks like I must be the first of the Hawai'i bloggers to be able to get back on line.

Indeed.
posted by krisjohn at 11:06 PM on October 15, 2006

woo hoo ... got coffee! (Hawai'i is waking up.)

Yeah, I know, you folks can suffer through 3 day snowstorms and we get weak with a 12-hour power outage. Maybe it has something to do with being 5000 miles from our nearest neighbors ...

Here is an interesting link about earthquakes in Hawai'i (history and predictions from UH scientists):

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/oahu-quakes2.html

This was a big one -- I think we have a lot to learn.
posted by Surfurrus at 11:34 AM on October 16, 2006