Ok, as some of you know I live in So. California. Well, we had an earthquake today (a 5.4) and it gave a little rumble. During the earthquake it only knock over my cup and my deodorant. Other than that, everything else stayed in place. Nothing strong enough to do any real harm, but not according to the local media coverage.

I turned on the TV to see how strong it was and by then CBS, NBC, The CW, ABC, KCAL and FOX all had their "Breaking News" set, ready to go and mobilized around the county. They start to go on this fear mongering campaign that this could only be a foreshock and the real thing could be coming anytime soon. They start to talk to authorities and locals and those conversations essentially went like this:

Reporter: WOW, did you feel that quake, officer?
Officer: Ugh... yeah. I'd like to tell all your viewers to stay calm, relax and it wasn't a strong quake to do any real harm.
Reporter: ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT? It felt pretty strong and there could be more coming.
Officer: True, but the important thing is to stay calm and please stay off the phone unless it's an emergency. We need to keep the lines open and clear in case there is somebody calling requesting assistants from firefighters, cops or paramedics.
Reporter: Ok, thank you, officer. We'll let you go.
Officer: Thank you. Good-bye.
Reporter: Ok, now we're on the line with Linda...

(( Ugh... weren't they suppose to keep the phone lines clear? :\ ))

Linda: Hello there.
Reporter: Hello, Linda. Can you tell us what horrible experiences you had today regarding the quake?
Linda: Well, my cat started to meow, so I got up to give it some milk. That's when I felt the quake. I saw my dishes shaking and was afraid they might tip over. They didn't.
Reporter: Uh-huh, anything else?
Linda: My husband started to get mad because it woke him up. When my husband's sleep gets disturbed you just know it'll be a bad day. After that I called my brother up in Oakland to see if he was ok. I called him and he told me he didn't feel a quake; that he was too far north to feel it. After that, I called to see if the bingo tourn----
Reporter: ...

*5 minutes later*

Linda: ...and that's when I went back inside to finally give my cat some milk.
Reporter: zzzz
Reporter: Ugh... thanks Linda. Now we go LIVE to the streets to see the hard hitting damage.
Reporter #2: Yes, I'm out here on the streets talking to liquor store owner Lui Kang. Lui, can you tell us what happened during this powerful quake?
Lui: Yes, I proceeded to walk outside when it started and saw some bottles fall over. That's about it.
Reporter #2: WOW, you're telling me bottles came CRASHING to the ground causing MASSIVE amounts of damage?
Lui: No, they were plastic. I just have to go in there and pick th---
Reporter #2: DID YOU hear that, everybody, we got some serious damage down here. This quake is DEVASTATING the community!

Reporter: Nice reporting, Jim. Now we go to Arty in the sky who's been searching for damage that this quake caused.
Arty: Yes, we've been searching for 40 minutes and finally found some damage. Zoom in, Al.

*zooms in on some bricks that fell over*

Arty: Do you see this, everybody? These bricks fell over because of that powerful quake.
Reporter: Look at that. Whew. Hover in that area, Arty, we'll be using that shot for awhile.
Arty: Will do!
Reporter: MORE breaking news, we just got word that a wall fell over in La Habra. Is it earthquake related? We don't know... we just don't know... We're going to take a break while we gather more information on this devastating quake, so stay tune and we'll be right back.

Dot. Dot. Dot.

The local news over here is making it sound like there was some catastrophic event over here when in reality it just shook a few things around. In fact, I think the only real damage done to a human was a POSSIBLE broken leg in Palmdale. Again, that broken leg is possibly related to the quake.

The local news is just hilarious when something like this happens. When there's a car chase about 3-4 channels will interrupt programing just to broadcast that. It's just crazy that they're TRYING to make something out of nothing. Trying to instill fear into people when all the quake did was shake a few things around.

That's funny vilky. In fairness, the police wanted the lines open for them - not the reporter's line.

I did see the headlines from my newspage and I got worried. I remember how you live in CA, and obs too (but he didn't even mention it in chat so it must be something not disastrous). Although I know some of you over there are pretty "used" to earthquakes, you'll never know when a small one can make a big disaster.

I remember my first big earthquake experience (ok, this is the part where you click on other threads and skip my post, lol) I didn't know what an earthquake can do. All these people beside me were panicking and crying. Duh. One even wanted to jump off the 2nd floor. I just walked calmly asking people to get out of the building. Later, when I saw the news, I saw the after effects: buildings actually collapsed and trapped/killed people. I'm glad I didn't know that earthquakes can do such damage. Now that I know, I guess I'll be one of those panicky people now if ever another earthquake happened.

Sounds like when we get grazed by hurricanes every year. I'm not sure why they make such a big fuss when it might have been just a little bit of wind damage and some rain.