...it was, um, an earthquake? I snapped awake before 6 this morning for some reason and listened. shortly after I heard the sound of someone walking across my kitchen floor. As the hairs stood up on the back of my neck I realized that the house was making noises, that there was a stranger noise from outside. A storm? I was still groggy and thinking if the house was making all this noise in a storm I was in trouble. By that point I realized my bed was jiggling like a jello-mold salad. In my not-awake-state it briefly crossed my mind that a storm was raging and that the people who had broken in were shaking my bed. It wasn't until I woke up a bit more that I realized it must've been an earthquake or perhaps a powerful explosion somewhere. Sure enough, on the radio this morning, Indiana got a 5.2 earthquake. I haven't checked the basement, but I don't see any new cracks in the ceiling or other such damage. The chimneys dad and I worked on held nicely.
This marks my second Hoosier earthquake. The first one was a really amazingly unlikely combination back in 1986 when our house got hit by a tornado on the same afternoon as the earthquake. I believe the two events were separated by less than two hours. One nice thing about last night's earthquake is that, for about a half hour, it actually convinced the mockingbirds to shut the hell up--they've been singing all night (listen! I'm a Robin! listen! I'm a Blue Jay! listen! I'm a car alarm!...") and driving me nuts. Well, off to the Great Outdoors and then to my paper-writing.
UPDATE:
11:15 a.m., and my lamp is still wobbling--evidently an aftershock. I was sitting here at the computer when my chair started moving under me, and the bookcase swayed. It lasted perhaps 15 seconds, all told. Evidently the mockingbirds are used to this now, as they started right back up singing as soon as the shaking stopped.
UPDATE of UPDATE:
The 11:15 aftershock was 4.6. The mockingbirds are napping, and I think I might follow their lead. Avoiding D.H. Lawrence in such tectonically-active times is hard work.
4 comments:
I heard about that on the radio! When I was in England a month or two ago, they had an earthquake. It was the first one they'd had in a long time. I had never felt one before and couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Glad to hear everything's okay.
I'm glad to hear your house survived the earthquake just fine. Regarding the birds, well, I sympathize, but welcome to spring.
The cat jumped on the bed, and I thought she was "power washing" herself, making the bed wiggle. What a surprise to wake up fully, turn on the radio, and discover the problem wasn't an over-zealous cat!
I felt the 11:15 aftershock as well. And you won't be surprised to hear that most of the folks at work didn't even notice it happening. I don't know, but when my desk is moving and I'm not, I'm going to notice.
I think we have a new crack over our shower. Other than that, no damage to this old house.
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