Originally Posted by
seedsbelize
I woke up to one in a cheap hotel(solid stone and concrete) in Antigua Guatemala many years ago. It sounded, and felt like a freight train had crashed into the footers, underground. That street filled with people in a flash!
My first earthquake experience was the 1971 Sylmar quake, a 6.9 with lots of damage. One of the casualties was the VA hospital in Sylmar, which was leveled. Rather than rebuild it the fed gave the land to the county which made it into a beautiful park. The border fence to that park is 5 houses away from where I live now, oddly.