Just a few minutes ago, as Mister was playing Silly Little Game, I hear one of the guild members say, “Hey, we’re having an earthquake right now!” What she was talking about was this. Not a huge one, but big enough to cause a commotion. As for me, not being from a seismically active area, have only felt an earthquake once in my life. This quake occurred pretty far from where I lived at the time, but I we still felt it all the way on the MA/NH seacoast. I remember waking up because of the noise of my window rattling. It was a window that was cracked and a bit loose in the frame, so it made a bit of noise. I woke up and felt my bed shaking back and forth a little bit. Even though it was my first experience with quakes, I knew right away what it was. I said to no one in particular, “Cool!” and went back to sleep.
There’s something funny about how people react to quakes. I watch disaster shows on tv, and they’ll show footage of quakes in various places around the Pacific Rim. The Japanese barely react at all, unless it’s somewhat severe in which case they’ll nonchalantly take cover from falling objects. West Coasters are similar. Mister says he won’t wake up for anything less than a 5.0, but then again he was at the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. East Coasters, on the other hand, act like the world is ending. When a quake occurs back east, news reports are overflowing with stories of how 911 call centers are bombarded with calls. “I think I just felt a bomb!” “A large truck just drove by my house really fast and it shook the whole house!” Yeah, we get excited and/or freaked out when the ground shakes. Give us a major nor’easter and we can handle it, but a little hippy hippy shake and forget it.
So, have you ever been in an earthquake? Tell me all about it!
An earthquake? Like a small ground poot! However much I’d like to visit the west coast, the thought of ever living on a huge fault line doesn’t thrill me. And with all the scientific predictions of “someday” add in the tsunami factor and that’s when I’ll probable move a little closer inland (like PA). Maybe I’ll wait for CA to visit me.
Oh stop it Mommy. All the time I’ve lived here and visited CA, the only earthquake I’ve ever felt was back east. So there.
Last year there was a quake along the New Madrid. The St. Louis area only experiences an earthquake of any size about once every hundred years.
Experiencing the after-shocks from the 11th floor of a high-rise office tower was…. interesting.
Yeah, people don’t realize that buildings sway like that during tremors! Did it take a few minutes to get your “land legs” back?
I recall a tiny tremor that happened a few years back here in Massachusetts. It sounded like a small explosion or like someone had slammed the front door shut very hard.
Ron, maybe it was the same one I mentioned? I was living next door to you at the time, and there aren’t too many tremors that are felt out there.