Earthquake basics.
Earthquakes happen daily but they are not big enough for us to hear them and they have very low magnitudes. Depending on the magnitude of the earthquake, it could effect a different amounts of the area. For example, earthquakes are measured on a 1-10 scale where ten is highest amount of damage. The Nisqually earthquake in 2001 was a 8.8 and effect such a large area that costs 2-4 billion dollars to repair the damages. People find out seconds before a earthquake comes.