Friday, August 26, 2011

Earthquake in Virginia?!? WHAT!

If you haven't heard it all over the news, Virginia experienced the largest earthquake since 1897 on Tuesday! Not only was it the first earthquake I have ever felt, but it had to be the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I have to say it is a very uneasy feeling to have the ground you stand on be unsteady, not to mention unexpected.
I had the pleasure of being at work when it happened. I was talking to my mother on the phone and It was weird because at the same time we both told each other we had to go. ( Of course neither one of us knew we were going through the same thing at the time) The first thought that came to my mind was that my building was about to be hit by an airplane because of the rumbling sound and the fact that I work fairly close to an airport!
After struggling to stand on this now moving surface I made it outside clear of any potential hazards and it was seriously like the world had stopped. People filed out of there offices, everyone still confused and not really believing what was going on. Some people were even yelling to me wanting confirmation that we were having an earthquake. Finally after being shaken up for what seemed like an eternity it was over and because my husband and I work together I knew he was ok, so the first thing that came to my mind was my mom!
Of course when I went to call her I got a busy signal and then just silence. Since my computer was already up I saw were people were posting there phones were out, so it made me feel a little better knowing more of what was going on. Some phone companies were out, but a majority of the reason the phones weren't working was because everyone was trying to use there phones at the same time.
Thankfully after the longest ten minutes of my life I was able to get a hold of my mom and she was fine. In the end the magnitude of the earthquake was 5.8 and there have been a few aftershocks within the past couple of days. One even reached a magnitude of 4.2 , but thankfully we don't live that close to the epicenter to have been able to feel those. Now that the earthquake stuff is over we are preparing for the hurricane that's supposed to hit this weekend!!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Glad to see ya"ll survived! The blog looks GREAT, BTW.