Quake Here
Less than an hour ago I was sitting here at my computer reading about one or another of the many serious things happening in the world when right here in my most immediate world, something suddenly started giving my little home-made "green oak" house a good shaking, accompanined by a loud booming noise, as if an impossibly huge vehicle had suddenly started rolling down the road straight in this direction. And this commotion lasted a long time, for almost 20 seconds I would say. I jumped up and hurried to the kitchen, though I didn't run -- having turned 80 less than a month ago, I do not instinctively run anywhere anymore -- but by the time I got there, it was all over. . . .
The latest earthquake here.
I made a quick tour of the house and of the workshop, but I could see absolutely nothing amiss, and though both places are filled with things that could've fallen off shelves, there was none of that.
Then, a short while later, one of wife's cousins from Atlanta called, to see if we were all right. He had just seen a newscast, and he said our earthquake here in Virginia had been measured as a 6.0.
I called my neighbor, K., the potter across the road. He said he was in his studio, making pots, and the quake gave everything a good shaking, the same as here in my house. He ran outside, and there he could see the ground moving. But again he saw nothing fallen, amongst all the pots in his shop or elsewhere. But he had exactly the same impression of the sound of it that I had -- of a very large truck thundering down the road.
This is the third small quake we've had here in the last 10 years or so. I was outside for the first one, and experienced it as some invisible force that suddenly and briefly whooshed through the big trees overhead, while the second manifested itself entirely in a noise as if a house or some other building had suddenly been the victim of a gigantic explosion, just a few hundred yards away. I kept looking to see a big plume of smoke mounting into the sky over the trees, but naturally saw nothing.
It's odd that I had just finished reading online about a big earthquake that hit Colorado today or yesterday. I was surprised, as I never associate any place in the Rockies with quakes, but that was in large part how all those huge mountains got there in the first place, isn' it?
I wonder if these several tremors are pre-shocks leading up to something big here, later today or some time in the next 10,000 years?
The latest earthquake here.
I made a quick tour of the house and of the workshop, but I could see absolutely nothing amiss, and though both places are filled with things that could've fallen off shelves, there was none of that.
Then, a short while later, one of wife's cousins from Atlanta called, to see if we were all right. He had just seen a newscast, and he said our earthquake here in Virginia had been measured as a 6.0.
I called my neighbor, K., the potter across the road. He said he was in his studio, making pots, and the quake gave everything a good shaking, the same as here in my house. He ran outside, and there he could see the ground moving. But again he saw nothing fallen, amongst all the pots in his shop or elsewhere. But he had exactly the same impression of the sound of it that I had -- of a very large truck thundering down the road.
This is the third small quake we've had here in the last 10 years or so. I was outside for the first one, and experienced it as some invisible force that suddenly and briefly whooshed through the big trees overhead, while the second manifested itself entirely in a noise as if a house or some other building had suddenly been the victim of a gigantic explosion, just a few hundred yards away. I kept looking to see a big plume of smoke mounting into the sky over the trees, but naturally saw nothing.
It's odd that I had just finished reading online about a big earthquake that hit Colorado today or yesterday. I was surprised, as I never associate any place in the Rockies with quakes, but that was in large part how all those huge mountains got there in the first place, isn' it?
I wonder if these several tremors are pre-shocks leading up to something big here, later today or some time in the next 10,000 years?
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 3:00 PM
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