Today is the 40th anniversary of the Sylmar/San Fernando Earthquake

[Wrightwood]

An hour before sunrise, at 6:01 AM on February 9, 1971, the greater Los Angeles area was struck by one of the most devastating earthquakes in California history.

Vintage video of the Sylmar earthquake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiabD0WBl7w

[AvocadoFlyer]

I vividly remember that...my room was shaking and my lights were blinking off and on (mercury switches)!  Scared the snot out of me yet my parents and brother slept right through it until my petrified yelling woke them up! hahahah 

[ChrisLynnet]

How could anyone sleep through that?! Although I guess if you're far enough away from the epicenter you could. We were in the Hollywood Hills and that was the most terrifying few minutes of my life.

[Naughty pines]

At that time I was living about 6 blocks from Olive View Hospital. It was the wildest ride I have ever had. There was minimal damage to the house I was living in.
My mother and brother came up from Burbank to check on me as there was no phone service. There were police cars with public address systems asking for volunters to help at Olive View, the three of us went up there.
Injured persons had been moved to a big open yard when the automated sprinkler system suddenly turned on and all of the people had to be relocated to a dry area.

[free2bee]

I was living in a house that had a basement! Over by Valley College in San Bernardino. That house was doing the twist or the hula or both!!??

[kew]

I was working at General Dynamics, Pomona. That was the morning I learned that concrete can bend like waves on the ocean. Quite a surreal visual experience. I don't really have any memories of the shaking because my mind kept trying to get a grip on what I was seeing.

[ForestGal]

I lived in El Segundo then, and I remember being ticked off because it woke me up before my alarm went off, to get me up to get ready for work.  My hubby braced himself in the bedroom doorway, and I grumbled and turned back over in bed.  It wasn't until I got to work at 0800 in Inglewood, that I learned the extent of what had happened.

That day was my Dad's birthday, and I had planned to drive to Bakersfield, where my mom and dad lived, that weekend to visit.  Since the freeways were all messed up, I ended up flying from LAX (about a mile from my house) to Bakersfield.  My Dad would have been 100 years old today (he died 11/13/95).