5 PM: Appeal staffer Leanna Yip notes that Mick LaSalle’s blog post (referred to below) reporting on the quake has disappeared! Looks like SFGate is either having a tragic technical issue, or the Chronicle is practicing “scrubbing”, a behavior described in the Columbia Journalism Review as “unethical” and a “practice that simply isn’t an option for responsible journalists.”
And, yes, it’s not like this is a report from their head science writer — this is their film critic, so this is hardly the scandal of the century. Still, media outlets deleting their own blog posts and articles is such a bullshit move even Columbia is against it! Let’s hope, for the sake of the Chronicle, that this is just a technical problem that will be resolved soon.
2:50 PM: Let’s see what everyone else said about the quake!
ABC7 3.8 magnitude quake strikes near Milpitas Today’s quake had a depth of 5 miles! It was “centered six miles east-northeast of Milpitas and eight miles north-northeast of Alum Rock, the same area that saw a quake just 26 hours ago.” Alum Rock sounds fun, is it? Who’s been?
CBS5 Another Bay Area Quake Jolt: Magnitude 3.8 Huh! Today’s the “third straight day, an earthquake was felt by residents of the San Francisco Bay Area — but once again there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.” I guess there was a 2.8 quake on Wednesday in the same spot, too. I did not know this! “This recent quake activity probably does not foreshadow a major quake, said Dr. David Oppenheimer with the USGS, but was instead ‘background seismicity.'” “It’s a reminder to everybody that we are in an earthquake area.” THANKS FOR THE REMINDER.
SFGate You Felt That, Right? Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle blogs that the quake “Felt like a 4.5” Insert joke about the truth being opposite of what he says here!
12:17 PM: A spokesperson for the USGS, when asked about the likelihood of a “really big earthquake” (hi, I dropped geology 3 times in college!) following this series of quakes is “between 5 and 10%.” Which, as was pointed out, is not a huge likelihood, but isn’t a pleasant thing to contemplate, either.
12:01 PM: As is their protocol, BART will be delayed for the next 5-10 minutes as they do their routine post-earthquake track inspection.
12:00 PM: We’re getting reports that this was felt in the Outer Richmond, Inner Richmond, and Outer Sunset, but I didn’t feel it. The “did you feel it?” map is showing a lot of reports in 94118.
We encourage you to respond to the map, because it’s the right thing to do, but tell us, too, OK?
11:55 AM: The USGS said yesterday’s 4.1 magnitude quake wasn’t a sign of things to come, and we took them at their word — so what was that shaking that just came from nearly the same place as yesterday?
It was a 3.8 magnitude quake that hit Milpitas at 11:48 this morning.
I didn’t feel a thing. How about you?
