Earthquake in NYC. WHAT?
This is how crazy I am.
So the closet door started rattling, and it kept rattling, and I thought my neighbor must be doing something weird on the other side of the wall. That was logical, I guess.
And then the front door started rattling, hard, and I thought someone was probably breaking in, so I ran over to and pressed my eye against the peep hole, so that I could see who was about to murder me. No one.
I thought about grabbing a knife from the kitchen, anyway, just in case. But then the hanging lights in the kitchen started swinging, and the floor was shaking, and I came to the only reasonable conclusion possible:
“Oh my god. It’s an alien invasion.”
I stood perfectly still for a while, not sure where to go for safety. And then, when the shaking subsided, I wrote to Bear at work, “LOL! It totally felt like an alien invasion over here! So weird! Or maybe an earthquake. What is up with that?”
“It was an earthquake,” Bear wrote back.
Oh. Of course. But wait– really?? This is New York City! We don’t have earthquakes. We’re built on a giant rock or something.
Bear’s office is on the 35th floor. He said the building was shaking. He didn’t say he was scared or anything, but I got the feeling that even after growing up in California, this was a little intense.
Anyway, there was no need for the knife. And it turned out to be an earthquake. Not, um, an alien invasion. Who thinks that?
(A sign on a building on the Stanford campus. We clearly need more of this type of research here.)
* * *
Unroast: Today I love the way the burn on my arm looks. That isn’t some weird, self-damaging hint about my masochism. It’s somehow just kind of pretty. Which is good, right? Since it’s there. And since I’m clumsy, so it probably won’t be the last one ever.
Kate on August 23rd 2011 in Uncategorized
Amy responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 5:44 pm #
I live in VA and that’s where the epicenter was. I was just getting ready to teach class, and the building rumbled. I was like you, wondering what could have caused such a thing. My estimation? Machinery. I feel like I missed it because I didn’t know what it was!
Claire Allison responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 5:52 pm #
I read that out loud to my boyfriend and we had a good chuckle. I think you’ve been reading or watching too much Sci-Fi, Kate.
Kate responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 6:39 pm #
@Claire Allison
Yup. We were watching this incredibly bad sci-fi movie the other night… 🙂
San D responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 6:41 pm #
Thank God my husband was home to verify what I felt, because at that moment I thought “oh, so THIS is what it feels like to have a heart attack!”
Kate responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 6:43 pm #
@San D
Scary!!
Megan responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 6:54 pm #
Ok that is an excellent theory you had! I’m in Baltimore and I was clueless too. I definitely thought it was an upstairs neighbor or construction. I thought the ceiling was going to collapse though–eek!
I’m glad we all survived!
Joyce responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 7:21 pm #
Watch out for the aftershocks. Just when you think it’s over–not.
jensketch responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 7:48 pm #
I think the earthquake traveled North of the epicenter — I’m literally right below and a tad west of where it hit (I’m in NC) and I didn’t feel a single thing. But I grew up in California, perhaps my attuned body didn’t register it 😛
Michelle responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 7:51 pm #
I live in the Washington DC area and had left work early for a dentist appointment in Alexandria (northern Virginia). I was early and thought I’d stop in a grocery store to pick a few things up. I was paying for my items when I heard a loud rumbling. My first thought was that someone was pushing a heavy metal cart behind me. Then I felt the ground shake under my feet. Odd! On on the ground floor of a grocery store–a cement floor! Then I turned around and saw items falling off the shelves in the aisle nearest to me. I assumed a long line of shelves was collapsing. Then I realized the shelves in ALL the aisles were swaying and all sorts of food items were falling down. The cashier grabbed my arms and started screaming, and in a split second, I grabbed her arms and started screaming too. Then everyone made a mad dash out the door. I left my bag inside, and quite frankly, didn’t even remember it. The dentist office was just around the corner, and as I parked I saw people had vacated all the offices and shops on the street. I tried to call my family on my cell phone, but the networks were busy. I headed into the dentist’s office and they were also in a panic. Neither the dentist nor I wanted any sharp dental equipment in my mouth if there were an aftershock, so I rescheduled….
liz responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 8:06 pm #
We are in Raleigh and definitely felt it! But fear not, you weren’t the only one to conclude something completely irrational. I hit my head 3 weeks ago and got a concussion that I haven’t completely healed from. When I felt the shaking I instantly thought my brain was exploding in my head or something like that; I froze and for some reason stared at my hands. Luckily it was just the earth shaking…
Kate responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 8:22 pm #
@Michelle
Oh my god. That is so dramatic. That really is like a scene from a movie. I’m glad you’re OK!
Hunter4086 responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 9:26 pm #
I live in Vancouver, so I have to say every trembling leaf or wavering something-or-other makes the citizens consider that looming Big One is upon us!
However, I do relate to your knee jerk response that it was an alien invasion…
Once, a long time ago, my partner and I arrived home late. It was dark, and a chill autumn mist floated in the air. We lived near the cemetery, in a rural area.
“Sssshh,” he hissed abruptly, raising his hand for silence just as he slid the key into the lock. We both froze. I heard vague, sly thuds from somewhere on the second floor.
“Zombies!!!” I whispered, horrified.
(It turned out to be an intruder…of the mortal kind. To make a long story short, nothing bad happened, but I was regarded in disbelief for a long time because of the undead being my first guess.)
Glad it wasn’t worse for you, though. And I burned myself on the toaster this morning, and was just noticing that the blister actually resembles a chubby, pink hamster face. So I can also relate to your un-roast.
Laurin responded on 23 Aug 2011 at 11:53 pm #
I can TOTALLY relate to your first guess…
A little while ago, a plane flew really *really* low and very loudly over our house, in Sydney (Aus).. my sister and I both thought – argh, it’s Tomorrow when the War Began!!!
.. Which is an Australian young adult novel written by John Marsden about Australia getting invaded and how a group of teenagers escape capture and fight back… excellent series, if you’re interested, very clever…
nonetheless, it was a pretty *out there* assumption! And the fact that we both thought it made us laugh 😉
Glad you’re okay, Kate 🙂
Laurin.
Emily responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 12:56 am #
LOL Laurin!!!! I’ve done the exact same thing (I live in Aus. as well Northern Rivers though) and every time I hear a low plane I think through my ‘Tomorrow when the War Began contingency plan’! haha. Also every time our local show is on… we are near a river port… there is a reserves base nearby… and bombing range… it could happen! lol.
Herb S. responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 4:41 am #
Kate- I had to chuckle when I read your description of your reaction. Let’s face it. New Yorkers, we don’t know from earthquakes. Hurricanes yes, but earthquakes?
My first was when I was in Livonia, Michigan in about 1984 or so. I was sleeping deeply, in a Comfort Inn. I was there on business, had been traveling extensively for awhile, and I had seen and heard all kinds of things in hotels and motels. So when I awoke to the sensation of the bed shaking, I just assumed that a couple in the next room, whose headboard probably abbuted against the same wall as mine, were really going at it. I just shrugged it off, thinking, lucky them, and went back to sleep. Of course, in the morning, the restaurant was all a buzz about the earthquake of the previous night.
So, yesterday, as I was at my desk here in the Hudson Valley, working, and I felt the chair shimmy slightly, I didn’t think much of it. Maybe just a heavy truck on the block. Some construction equipment, not unusual. Then I looked at Facebook and saw mulitple posts like: “EARTHQUAKE!!!!!” and, “OMFG!! WHAT WAS THAT???”, and “HEY I FELT IT TOO!!!”.
All I cared about was making sure my girlfriend who works in Manhattan, was OK, and she was, she never felt a thing, no evacuation of her building in midtown. Family and friends all checked in, all ok.
So for this New Yorker, it was just like Livonia, Michigan all over again. No harm, no damage, no clue.
We live within about an hour of Indian Point nuclear plant. It was supposedly designed to withstand 6.1. This was a 5.8 in Virginia, but if you ask me, that’s pretty damn close.
Sari responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 5:49 am #
I think that it probably was an attempted alien invasion and the government is trying to cover with this earthquake story so people don’t freak out any more than necessary.
I mean, obviously…
PJ responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 1:08 pm #
It started off slow here in Annapolis. I thought oh damn that’s a loud truck outside. Then I thought hmmm feels like my washing machine is unbalanced and thumping around on the floor. Only the machine in my new house is in the basement and was not running.That’s when it hit me. I ran to the front door and all the windows on the neighbors houses were shaking so I got the hell out.
Raven responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 1:21 pm #
Ha! Love it. ^_^
Sometimes in Seattle when we get earthquakes they’re early in the morning, and I wake up thinking I have some serious vertigo or I’m hallucinating, but then I realize that the bed must be having vertigo, too, and that just doesn’t equate and it forces me fully awake. Sometimes I yell at my cats or my daughter thinking they’re the ones shaking the bed, only to realize that nope, I’m alone, so clearly I must be doing it with my mind! Telekinesis ftw?
Dee responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 1:23 pm #
@hunter – that is sooo funny! no more horror flicks for you!
@ kate – i love the alien invasion reference. think x-files. the truth is out there.
also when i felt my first earthquake after moving to LA i thought it was a too heavy truck driving down the alley.
LeeH responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 3:12 pm #
We think weird things sometimes, right?
The other night my husband went to fill up the car, and I got this creepy picture in my head of him being carjacked and the person with the car also having his wallet and knowing where we lived and having the garage remote (oh it went on but I’ll spare you) So I actually locked the door from the garage into the house and stood outside (with my phone) to be SURE he was in the car when it pulled in the driveway.
Sheesh, the places the mind goes.
Glad the earthquake was not very destructive.
B1 responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 3:17 pm #
LOL! I love it! Aliens! I’m in Sterling, VA and I was on the phone, I felt the vibrations in my seat and then everything started shaking. I told the guy on the phone, “I think we’re having an earthquake”. His response was, “do you need to evacuate?”, I said, “no, I’m good.” Then our building was evacuated.
My sister, who lives in Sumter, SC had a funny response. She said she noticed that her bedroom mirrow was shaking and she thought it was her washing machine and then realized that she didn’t have anything in the washing machine and then she freak out. 🙂
B1 responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 3:18 pm #
wow, I really should proof read… mirror not mirrow, not sure why my finger went to the w. 🙂
claire responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 3:25 pm #
this time I felt nothing, at the computer at my Hospice desk, the print was a little fuzzy, but since I am an older person, I thought I was a little dizzy, however we really did not feel much of anything.
Once awhile ago, visiting my son who lives in Andover, and for the first time went to see his basement, which is not under his house but adjacent, as I stepped in the earth shook, I looked around and saw people coming out of their houses, and it seems that area is on a fault. I thought at the time that it was me the caused it, however although I can be a witch, not at that time. Glad you and Bear weathered the shake.
Gaby responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 3:35 pm #
I know so crazy that it happened in the NE!! I mean, in Cali it’s expected, but I can imagine just having no idea what to think if things started shaking here! I think I’d start to freak out that they had decided to bulldoze my building with me in it….or it was a terrorist attack or explosion…or alien invasion. I guess that’s logical :p
How did you burn your arm? Because that’s maybe the hugest coincidence ever. I burned my arm on a pyrex tray pulling it out of the oven several weeks ago, it make a big bubble then came off leaving a big white oval on my bicep and I kind of think it looks cool too, like battle scars! 😀
Anna responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 5:54 pm #
I seriously thought I was going to faint or something was wrong with me and then noticed my water and plant were shimmying to. I am so used to big trucks making the building shake I was not terribly phased. I was glad though that I was not the problem but tremors from an earthquake were. Good to know for the future, tremors make me queasy!
Fritzy responded on 24 Aug 2011 at 8:30 pm #
Here in Texas recently I heard loud, really loud, noises which seemed to come from the sky . I WAS SURE it was an alien invasion. Come to think of it, maybe it was! There was no moisture from the heavens to indicate that what I heard might have been thunder.
sure don’t want an earthquake, but a hurricane would almost be welcome IF it also brought some rain.
Kate responded on 25 Aug 2011 at 12:59 pm #
@LeeH
Yup. My mind does that constantly.
Kate responded on 25 Aug 2011 at 1:00 pm #
@Claire/Grandma
If you can be a witch, then maybe sometime you can fly over here and visit again! 🙂