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Shake Shake Shake!

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH MMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY GGGGGGGGOD! PLEASE HELP US!!!

That was my running thought this afternoon when an earthquake hit. And when I say running thought, I mean that I was thinking it while I was running. It’s common on the eighth floor here to feel rumblings when large semi’s or construction vehicles drive by. I ruled that out when it didn’t go away after a couple seconds and things started to actually shake.

In many ways, I have California to thank for prepping me earthquake-wise. I read up a lot about earthquakes and things to do to ensure survival and the like. Daily when I walked to work, I was keenly aware of the highway I had to walk under. I also had to wait for a light to change underneath it, so I always worked out when I hit the middle of that walkway in order to know which direction I would have the best chance of getting out from under the highway.

I had just taken out my frozen yogurt from the freezer (macadamia nut & shortbread!! yum yum!), brought it to the coffee table to munch on in the hot, humid weather, and as I took my first, sweet bite, was just contemplating that I should update my status about how nice it is to eat ice cream/frozen yogurt straight from the bucket, when it all started shaking. Spencer, whom I had just put down for a nap, was in his room, in his crib. This is when I started my mantra, as I ran into his room, ran out with him (who was completely quiet, as if he knew something out of the ordinary was going on…), and ran as fast as I could while carrying him down eight flights of stairs in order to get outside. The building, while not shaking as much as it had while I was getting Spencer, shook all the way down until about the third floor. Whew! No shoes for Jane! No clothes for Spencer! (He was just in his diaper and wrapped in a blanket – so hot today!) No keys to get back into the building!

So I waited outside of the office building for the apartments, where I felt relatively safe (about 15 minutes). In this time, no other shakes happened, it was confirmed that it was an earthquake, rather than some explosion somewhere, and the grounds-people for the apartment buildings had been called in for an emergency meeting and had just been sent off to check for structural damage. A few other people had managed their way outside, and as I looked around, I was actually rather surprised at how few people felt the need to leave the building. I don’t believe I panicked; having now reviewed a bit of the history of earthquakes in the region, they have had ones as strong as 6.2 (though that was 1700s sometime), so it is possible to have seriously damaging earthquakes here. I doubt our building would have held well under stress of that kind, and given the amount of shaking the building was doing, there was definitely valid reason to want to leave as quickly as possible.

Anyway, there was a nice couple and their young daughter who also had left the building, and they nicely let me back in. I decided to walk up all eight flights of stairs, just in case there was an aftershock. I shudder to think what it would be like to be in an elevator during an earthquake. On the other hand, I do realise how out of shape I am now.

Spencer handled it all very well. He mostly watched everything curiously.

So, that was my day. I had a good couple glasses of sherry after that, and watched my soccer game once Spencer was put to sleep again. I think the stress is finally starting to wear off now.

Today’s picture: Spencer gnawing on a toy that I had put in the fridge to cool for awhile. He actually managed, by himself, to put the proper end in his mouth. I don’t know if it was coordinated or intended that way by him.

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Loving God through my family, friends, and interactions in my world.

5 Comments

  • Darryl

    Whoops. Heh. I guess the comment section doesn’t like raw HTML. Fair enough – I imagine it’d be an easy vector for spam.

    I was posting the photo taken minutes before a certain quake in Anaheim. That was scary enough on the ground level. I’d hate to think about what it must have been like 8 floors up…..!

  • andy

    I edited the comment, so it should work as a link now. Hopefully. I can’t test it from work. Silly firewall…

    At least this time I noticed the earthquake. That other time I thought I just didn’t have enough coffee yet. This is the first earthquake we’ve been in that both Jane and I noticed! It’s a milestone!

    I was in a meeting. It paused for 20 seconds while we all realized we were in an earthquake. Then we carried on.

    I think the school should have closed and we could have all gone home 🙂

  • Darryl

    (Thanks for the link!)

    Yeah, I agree. We probably should have also closed up here, in solidarity with Ottawa.

    (I’d like to play video games for several hours.)

  • Jenn

    Wow Jane, what an experience! Thankfully it wasn’t any more serious. Fair play to you for keeping such a level head and getting outta there anyway, even though it interrupted the frozen yogurt experience (which sounds awesome by the way! Gotta try me some of that!!) Anyway, glad all’s alright now.
    So – we going camping? 🙂

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