After I posted the question, I remembered an interesting thing that happened to me
that day.
As I recall it was Sunday morning around just before 6:00 a.m. here in the mountains
of Colorado. I was sleeping soundly when outside my window there arose such
a clatter I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter (seems I've heard
that phrase somewhere before).
Actually what happened was this. That morning I was awoken by the very loud
howling of a dog outside my bedroom window. This dog had never before done this,
and I was a bit startled from my sleep. I peeked at the clock which said 6:00 a.m.
Just what was a dog doing howling outside my window at 6:00 a.m. I wearily got
up and went out to try to quiet him down. It was a neighborhood dog who was usually
very quiet, and was just new in town and getting acquainted with everyone. But
here he was at this ungodly hour waking up the entire neighborhood and outside
my window to boot.
Well, I finally got him settled down (his name was Ransom, and we became good
friends after that morning). But he wouldn't go away, he just kept sitting there
outside my house muttering away about something, loud enough so I couldn't
get back to sleep.
Finally, I gave up and turned on the TV to hear the initial reports of this large
earthquake in Southern California which had happened at 5:57 a.m. that morning.
The timing was such that I figured Ransom had felt the waves go through - or
had some other inkling about the event. Why he decided to howl outside the
window of the only seismologist within 10 miles, I've never been able to figure out.
The earthquake caused seiches in swimming pools in Denver several feet in height,
so there was considerable ground motion here.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it (I've heard that somewhere before too)