I friend of mine tells a story how he was in south america somewhere ( i think it was south america, they all spoke spanish, so it could have been southern california...
he was in a high rise, when there was an earthquake... he claims in a very un-manly way, he hit the floor, rolled under a desk and basically cowered like a girl... he claims that when the shaking stopped, he came out from under the desk and all the secretaries, who never stopped typing and doing work the entire time, just looked at him and giggled... (Now this story was relayed over several bottles of wine so it might have been exaggerated a bit for comedic effect)
When i lived i my parents house in Northwestern nj -- it wasn't far from the Ramapo fault line (an active but kinda quiet fault line) One morning I awoke to pictures falling off the wall and stuff falling off shelves...and the burglar alarm going off... Every so often in later years, if you heard car alarms going off late at night, it was more than likely the fault line at work...