I knew something was terribly wrong. I woke up. My wife was holding me - on purpose. The bed was shaking. Seems like a dream come true, right? In reality, it was an earthquake.
The house was shaking. The first thought was, "My it's windy." Then after about six or seven seconds the wind never let up.
Shelly was panicking. "What's going on?"
"An earthquake!" I said. I'm an earthquake survivor having survived one in September 1990 in Cape Girardeau, MO. Of course, everyone survived that earthquake. It did give me the experience to recognize this one right away.
Our nine-year-old daughter was in our room the instant the shaking had stopped. "What was that?"
"An earthquake!" I said.
Of course, my wife didn't believe me until the early morning news anchor told her I was right. She couldn't believe an experienced earthquake survivor.
UPDATE (9:58 am) Aftershock!!!!
3 comments:
I, too survived the quake in the '80s. I lived in Hannibal then and several of my friends said they felt it, but not me. Again, this time the news is saying tremors were felt here in Columbia, but I didn't feel them. Twice now I have survived earthquakes that I didn't even feel. Can I still count them as brushes with death?
With all the reference material hitting the Information highway today, I believe the other quake I survived was in September of 1990 in Cape Girardeau. There was big earthquake in the central Illinois in 1987. This is probably the one that Travis is speaking about.
The aftershock here was 4.5!! What a crazy day!!!
I felt both the 4:40 a.m. and 10:15a.m. tremors. The first one scared the crap out of me because when I went to bed, my wife had said we were supposed to have bad storms hitting through the night "tornado weather" starting around 4 a.m. When I woke at 4:40 (or just before), I swore this time it was too late and the cyclone was in our yard about to take down the house. But, missing the wind noise, I quickly checked tv, saw no dopplar, and ran outside to see calm skies. Then, I instantly knew it was either an earthquake or a major explosion within 50 miles. I logged on to the govt website and posted a first person account. It was my chance to provide statistical feedback and be part of history. You can log it too, but I didn't bookmark the site. Google it. Our house shook like crazy, 2nd floor of two story. I thought the whole thing lasted 5 minutes. Some reports are 20-30 secs. Others 50 secs. I'd say what I felt was a good 50 secs to experience all the things I did.
-Howdy
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