my family moved out of san fransisco in 1987... so my parents knew all about earthquakes and such.
when the '88 world series game got cut off (or was it '89? it was one of the two) because the tv screen told us, "there's been a minor quake," both parents knew it couldn't just be minor... no san fransisco ballpark's electronic system would be rendered unable to transmit signals because of a "minor" quake.
also, fun fact few people know about earthquakes: the scale they use? it's logarithmic, not linear. a 6.0 quake is a full ten times bigger than a 5.0, and a 9.0 is ten times bigger than an 8.0. the tsunami last year was 9.1.
*the more you know*