Hi Cathryn,

I saw a bit on the news last night where a home in Parkfield suffered heavy damage. The livingroom fireplace exploded inside taking every brick on the wall and placing them in a pile in front of the structure. Outside the part of the brick chimney above the roofline was just waiting for another quake to topple it onto the ground.

Virtually everything inside of the home was moved. All of his dishes came out of his cupboards and I noticed the livingroom ceiling was sagging, which no one mentioned.

My best guess is that he suffered between $35,000 and $50,000 in damages if not more. That's probably conservative. He said he had lived in Parkfield all of his life and only this earthquake shook so violently and so long. He said 45 seconds and all intense.

I also heard the children in the Parkfield school were thrown from their chairs (they don't have desks there) and everything inside of the school went somewhere. The new school teacher and the kids were pretty frightened.

I'm glad I was not in the equipment room at the Parkfield Inn. With that tractor equipment on display near the ceiling above the bathroom, its scary to think about it, let alone, be there when it happened.

Petra