WE. HAD. AN. EARTHQUAKE. AND. IT. WAS. SO. WEIRD!!!!
When I was in third grade I came home from school very worried and stressed out one day. My dad was concerned and asked what the problem was. I told him that that day we went over what to do at school if we had a hurricane, tornado or earthquake. I was really shook up about the whole thing. I remember my dad saying,
you do not have to worry about a hurricane, we are not by ocean, and the chance of an earthquake is probably smaller than a hurricane
and I have been in dozens of tornado's "watch's" so I knew all about those already. Well I have to say dad, you were wrong (have you ever been?), because almost 20 years later we had an earthquake.
Last night at 3:30 am I had gotten up and then quickly tried to go back to sleep and I could not. At 4:30am the whole house started to shake. At first I thought it was only the bed and I thought is someone shaking out bed, which was a scary thought.
Let me just say Andy does not wake up for anything and when I do finally get him up he is pretty much useless, no offense honey, but I still wanted him awake. So I get him awake and I say what is going on and he casually says, oh it is an earthquake. Ah, what? Come again? There is no way. I told him are you still out of it? You know where we live? We do not have earthquakes! And then he said well what would you think it would be and then I realized everything I could come up was completely unrealistic, so I gave in to his earthquake idea.
The whole house shook for probably 10 minutes. The WHOLE house. Like 2 feet of swaying. I seriously thought to myself why don't I live in California then. I swear if we start getting mud slides we are moving.
Since I can remember I have always wanted to live in California. Do not ask me why. And believe me every time I tell anyone this even Californians they think something is seriously wrong with me. My plan was to go to UCLA and stay there forever and EVERY TIME I go there I feel like I am home, but when I was little my parents would always say when "they" (Cali) would have an earthquake, aren't you happy we do not live there?
Anyway, at 10:15 am we had another one, that actually ended up being an after shock, but still weird. Throughout the whole thing nothing was hurt and nothing fell from the wall which is always what you see in pictures. So we were lucky there. The kids stayed asleep, I have no idea how, and all is well this morning. The only thing is this just really assures me how this is the time to be prepared. If we are having earthquakes HERE then it is time to be prepared...
3 comments:
Yea, who knew that we would get earthquakes in the midwest? It definitely woke me up early this morning. The people in Cali are probably laughing at us, because ours wasn't as bad as it could have been. haha. Still, when you're not used to it, it can be kind of freaky! Glad the kids slept through it and everyone is ok.
Actually, it is not uncommon that we are having earthquakes here. As a geologist it doesn't surprise me but I am amazed at how few people know about this area's past earthquake history as we've had some big ones.
I know it seems like a pessimistic view but there are natural hazards everywhere, we just aren't aware of them. That said, there are obvious places that are worse than others...
And it is sad that, as a geologist, I missed the whole thing!
So this morning I tried to convince Dave that there had been an earthquake in the night, and he insisted I was dreaming.
Since I am pregnant and do dream weird stuff (and I am from California and have been in lots of little earthquakes in the past), I couldn't be sure if it had been real either.
I felt so vindicated to discover that I was actually right!
Funny thing is, earthquakes don't phase me...it is the tornados that scare me. I think it all depends on which one you had the most drills on as a child. After years of drills it doesn't seem so scary anymore.
California is a magical place...I don't blame you for wanting to live there.
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