Whole Lotta Shaken

I slept through the whole thing. Really, I did. My husband called from his job at 4 a.m. to wake me up and say, "We just had an earthquake."

Ah, the sleep of the just.

I don't get a lot of rest and so, to be awakened from a wonderful sound sleep is quite annoying. I raised my head and looked around. The roof was still on, the wall still standing, and the windows unbroken. In the darkness, as near as I could tell, everything looked ok. I lay back down and went back to sleep until 7 a.m.

I did feel the aftershock around 10 a.m. and it freaked me out far more. I am on the bottom floor of a 10 story Public Housing building that is probably 30 years old or more. It felt as if the building was skating for about 5 seconds. I had this image of the top floor swaying but I can't be sure of that. I only know that in that five seconds I realized the impact those 10 floors would have should the shaking continue. There was no time to react.

So all that earthquake preparedness stuff is just junk. There is no time to get out of a building when the shaking starts. I am two offices away from an exit but that 10 floors will fall a lot faster than I could run, I suspect. And once out that door, I am in a large parking lot where I am sure a large amount of the brick, cement, and metal will end up. I would have to make it to the street to be sure of being safe from a falling building. It would take all of two or three minutes to get there... If I were composed enough to run.

The mid-west got all shook up.

For those wondering, I am sitting in Southern Indiana, in the toe of the boot, right at top of the New Madrid zone. Not the best place on the planet to retire.

There was more than one quake in the United State on Friday. For more factual information on quakes around the globe on the 18th, check out the USGS site: USGS