Wednesday, November 18, 2009

update ~ Crrrack

(Click on photo to enlarge and see the crack)
A follow up from yesterday's earthquakes here on Haida Gwaii. As I mentioned in yesterday's post I was lying in bed when there was a loud crack and then the earth moved like we were on a boat...40 seconds later and 2 immediate aftershocks we started to investigate the source of the crack. This is a 40' x 60' two story log home so it would not be unusual to hear wood cracking however we got more than we bargained for and a whole bunch of luck!
There are two spruce headers, which when we put them in 10 years ago to add two new rooms fit a little snugly. We figured the wood would shrink as it dried out. It did and as you can see a beautiful custom stain glass window measuring 12' x 5' was made to fit the space. Because the force of this earthquake was undulating the header above recieved pressure from both sides and cracked. Fortunately it is not a structural support and the stain glass did not break.
Since the first quake yesterday morning there have been more than 100 aftershocks and still counting.
Haida Gwaii is located along the Queen Charlotte Fault which is Canada's equivalent of the San Andreas Fault in California. The largest earthquake in Canada in recent history occured on these islands in 1949 which registered 8.1 on the Ritcher scale which is 1000 times stronger than what occured yesterday!
More My World Tuesday

6 comments:

Esther Garvi said...

Oh my! Can't imagine what it's like to have regular earthquakes... I'm glad no one got hurt!

Arija said...

Stoll a very scarry experience.

ms toast burner said...

Woo! What a crack! Very lucky indeed. Added character without damage.

That stained glass work is gorgeous.

Glad that you're ok. :-)

Deborah Godin said...

Ho-lee, that's not a good way to wake up at all! Good that it didn't do major structural damage, or harm those delightful fish!! Hope things settle down out there.

cieldequimper said...

Oh my! The stained glass is gorgeous!

Cedar ... said...

As long as that's not a weight carrying beam the crack is fine,... and whew! so glad that beautiful stained glass didn't break. That's amazing!

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