So…how many of you remember exactly what you were doing at 5:04 p.m. on this date 14 years ago? I do! 
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2003/October/17/local/stories/10local.htm
Redwolf
My mother was videotaping the Thorn Birds, and recorded the news interruption.
Actually, I do-- I was finishing up a class at the University of Arizona. Shortly after the quake they set up booths in the Student Union to help students find out whether or not their families were okay. I remember feeling so badly for all of them… and thankful that I didn’t live in CA, as beautiful as it is.
Best,
Andrea
Some relatives of ours were recording the World Series broadcast and kept taping for as long as they had tape after the quake. They sent us the tape later, and it was interesting to see things from the point of view of newscasters who aren’t familiar with the area. For example, one guy kept saying “it looks like there might be some damage to the freeway” (referring to the Nimitz), and it occurred to us that he didn’t realize it was a double-decker and had collapsed.
Downtown Santa Cruz was utterly destroyed. Only a couple of buildings were left standing that didn’t have to be demolished. I’ll never forget coming up here from Monterey about a week after the quake, walking across what I thought was a temporary parking lot, looking down and seeing the black and white tiles from the old Ford’s department store!
Redwolf
I was at work (in Santa Clara, a couple of blocks from the convention center) - sitting in a coworker’s office discussing some features we wanted to add to our software.
As soon as the quake hit, we were both under the table, watching his 6-foot bookshelves (with a prized Japanese doll he’d been given a decade earlier on top) swaying wildly. Somehow, the shelves (and the doll!) never quite fell - a good thing, since Tony admitted later that his first reflex would have been to lunge out and catch it.
My wife was in her car, stopped at a traffic light. She told me her first thought when it hit was that her engine was suddenly idling really roughly.
We both got through unhurt - but I had to pick up and reshelve a couple of hundred paperbacks when I got home. No damages, though. (I highly recommend the “child proof” shelf latches for cabinets; our older girl was a toddler at the time and we had everything (even the high ones - she climbed like a monkey) secured. If you live in earthquake country, get 'em even if you don’t have kids - you’ll thank me after the next quake.)
I was napping. My kids grandfather had picked them up and carted them off to the park for a couple of hours. I woke up to the waterbed sloshing too and fro. I jumped up to “attack” the little bugger that dared to wake up dad in such a way. Not finding the accoster and still feeling the waves I looked out our window. The utility poles were really rocking and rolling. I never felt scared or threatened though.
Steven
I was in an idling car too (I had an old Pontiac that needed to be warmed up, so I was sitting in it reading a book in the parking lot at work). There were a couple of initial jolts before the shaking started in earnest, and I thought someone was being a wise guy by jumping on my bumper. When the real shaking started, I thought I’d thrown a rod! I shut down the engine, but the car just kept surging back and forth. I was still totally clueless and, thinking the car was about to explode, I jumped out of it (big no-no). It was only when I felt the ground rolling under my feet and saw an entire line of parked cars rippling back and forth that I realized what was happening.
Amazingly, our big bookshelf didn’t tip over (actually an old computer tape rack…you remember those big metal monstrosities that weighed a ton?). When we came up to Mount Hermon to check on the properties, however, we found a real mess in the cabin. The fridge had walked across the floor and then tipped itself up against the table. At some point, the door had opened, and everything that had been in there (fortunately not much) was on the floor. To make matters worse, in its stroll across the kitchen, it managed to unplug itself, which caused the freezer to defrost…again, all over the floor. Talk about a mess! Yikes!
Redwolf
I was living in LA. My sister and her family lived outside Aromis (a tiny town near Watsonville, not far from Santa Cruz) at the time. My sister and her hubby were big sports fans and I remember looking at the Nimitz and the bridge (on the TV news) and wondering if they were caught up in all that on their way to the big game.
When her phone finally started working again I found out that they hadn’t been able to get tickets. Everything in her house was destroyed (she collects antique china, not the smartest hobby for a Californian 
) but the house itself (a big old frame farm house) had little actual damage.
They moved to VA a few years ago, and Sis says she doesn’t miss the earthquakes at all 
John
Excitedly following from our side of the fence the peaceful revolution of the German people in East Germany which ended with the opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Brigitte
I remember that too. My husband and I watched in amazement as the whole thing was covered on TV…it was something we’d never expected to see in our lifetimes. It was also a positive antidote to some of the grief and frustration the earthquake had left in its wake…a reminder that, in the rest of the world, life was continuing and exciting things were happening.
Redwolf
I remember it. It was a couple of months after our friends were held hostage (and some of them killed), and a couple of months before we had the earthquake where I lived (7.5). It’s unsettling when terra firma isn’t so firm!
I was standing in a paint store surrounded by pyramids of paint cans in El Cerrito. Felt like a giant bowling ball came underneath the place as it seemed to lift up then fall down. One paint can fell over and a vase of artifical flowers fell down, breaking the vase.
I did the usual stand-in-the-doorframe thing. The cashier became inconsolable and started crying, despite the minimal damage. I got in my car to go home, turned on the radio and it was dead air. Then I knew it was big. For those of you who abhor the local happy talk newsstations, it was their finest hour. Most of em broadcast for the next few days commercial free, 24 hours a day, their faces increasingly drawn by lack of sleep and concern. Nothing like that since except maybe Iraq wars in terms of running without pay.
When the section of the Bay Bridge fell, my heart sank. About 280,000 cars cross it every day and its much more economically important than the Golden Gate Bridge. I was at the heighth of my wedding gig career and crossed that span nearly every weekend. Oddly enough, I had just had a gig, then did not have a West Bay gig until the weekend after they re-opened it.
It’s also my Mom’s birthday. She died at age 45, 29 years ago of a sudden brain aneurysm (I was 17 but have now outlived her).. Its easy to remember this day for me.