By Scott LaFee, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Friday, April 9, 2010
Nancy Huang and her son, James, were driving on state Route 56 toward their Carmel Valley home on March 31 when they noticed some striking cloud patterns set aglow by the setting sun. They snapped a few photos.
“I told James they looked like earthquake clouds,” said Huang, who remembered reports of such clouds appearing just before a major temblor in Sichuan, China, in 2008. “We talked about being prepared for a quake. We made a bet about what might happen next.”
Virtually everybody in San Diego County, if not Southern California, knows what happened next.
Four days after the Huangs’ cloud sighting, a series of quakes struck south of Mexicali, about 110 miles east of San Diego. The largest measured 7.2 in magnitude.
Hundreds of aftershocks followed and continue to occur. Seven have reached magnitude 5 or greater, including a 5.3 quake yesterday at 9:44 a.m.
So, did Huang and her son see earthquake clouds?
