Hi hobferret:
Palo Alto is on the West side of the San Francisco Bay Pensulia. It is most affected by the San Andreas Fault zone, which is the one which caused the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Hayward is on the East side of the Bay and it's fault line runs North through Berkeley and South through San Jose. There are several other fault lines on the East side of the Bay, besides the Hayward fault.
I am located to the East of San Francisco and remember very clearly the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake along the San Andreas Fault which struck on October 17th, during the World Series between San Francisco and Oakland. I happened to be on the phone talking to someone closer to the epicenter who told me they were having an Earthquake. I has several seconds to warn the people in my office we were about to have an Earthquake before the shaking reached us and knocked over some major furniture in our office. I told them for several days that I was just physic and had just "known" it was coming.
That was the one which cause part of the S.F. Bay Bridge and a major doubledeck freeway in Oakland to collapse and part of San Francisco's Marina District to burn down.
That was my second major Earthquake experience. I was also fairly close to the epicenter of the 1983 Coalinga California Earthquake, centered south of San Jose, when that one hit. It was "only" about 6.5 on the Richter scale, while the Loma Prieta quake was about 7.1. We have much smaller "jolts" all the time around here, and they are always predicting a "big one" along the Hayward fault, someday, which will do major damage because of the mass of humanity and development along the fault line. Here's a map of "recent" activity along some of the major faultlines, which can be moved about to show major sections of the Bay Area.
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/FaultMaps/121-37.htm
What has been passing for summer here in California has been very strange also. The weather has been unseasonably cool and wet for almost summer. Hope you make it "home" soon.
Regards,