WoW Petopia Community

](Or, how Azu survives through her first earthquake, even if it wasn't that bad. )

Today, Virginia had an earthquake. The tremors were strong enough that the aftershock hit Washington, where I live. Imagine you're from the east coast, pretty sheltered, because the worst you have to worry about is a heat wave. Now imagine the entire building begins to shake. You don't know why, you've never dealt with this, and the shaking is getting worst. Things fall. The teacher begins to scream, "Everyone, calm down!" The principal also shouts for us to calm down and stay away from windows on the intercom. Well, someone has the voice of reason and we all dive down under the desks.

After the entire everything starts shaking, we all brush ourselves off and resume class, jittering and quailing about what just happened. Gas leak, bombs, earthquakes were all ideas thrown around. The Principal doesn't help, telling us that we can't be dismissed and we have to calm down. Finally, we get the news: That was just an earthquake, the Metro system isn't safe, and we can't be dismissed without a parent, and we're being evacuated.

Finally, we're allowed to be free, where we spend the next two hours waiting for a bus, then another hour fighting Earthquake Panic Traffic to home. And that's the story of how I survived the first earthquake I've ever survived. Yay.

Anyone else feel the quake?

Yep, felt it from where I am in New England. It was weird, I've never experienced an earthquake before. It was very light shaking in my area but it was still pretty neat

I've never been in anything that big - the worst (and only) I've experienced has been a slight tremor. Having the chair slowly scoot half an inch to the side under me was a bit unnerving though...

I live around NYC and definitely felt the quake--I was working on my laptop when the table shook, and the vase rocked back and forth. My sister lives near the epicenter and said stuff fell off the wall, though she first thought her BF snuck up on her and was just shaking the couch! One of my friends, who lives in Boston, said he felt the quake too. I've done some field work in WY (where, thanks to the tectonic activity in Yellowstone, I've experienced earthquakes before), so knew exactly what it was as soon as it started. It still always feels weird, though, and I could only imagine how nerve-wracking it'd be to experience it while in class (yay for still being on summer break)! Glad to hear that no one was hurt in your class, though, and that you got back all right, Azunara!

EDIT: silly typos.

Yeah. I was a bit worried about my dad, since he works up in Leesburg, VA, though he was up and around Arlington. I heard he was okay, so that's a plus.

Really, it was just a shock factor. Like, "What the hell is happening to us? I don't like it, it scares me, and people are panicking. Make it stop. D:"

Va checking in. I certainly felt it!

my friend lives in Virginia, but I ended up feeling SOME of the quake in Mass. This was actually the first time I was scared since the night of the tornado is mass...we got like 4 Tornado warnings, and cloud to ground lightning..
She also said there was people screaming about an evacuation..then she went offline, which REALLY scared me.

I hadn't even known there was an earthquake, despite reports, I believe, of people feeling it in eastern Ontario. But then again, I might have been walking to/from the store, and if it was small enough, it likely wouldn't have been noticeable without the rattling of ornaments/furniture.

There was a small one last year, I remember, that I didn't notice either. I just saw that all my nocturnal geckos were waking up and running around in the middle of the day. I later found out that at the same time, there'd been a small earthquake, so I guess they were far more senesitive to it!

There was a slightly bigger one when I was little... I remember we were home alone cause my parents were off at a party or something, and all of a sudden we heard all the ornaments we had shaking and rattling. It was an "OMG WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" as well as a "OOH! This is kinda cool! Everything is moving!"(even though it wasn't THAT bad) moment for me at that age, heh.

I live in Ohio and personally I didn't feel it but my bestfriend called me freaking out because she felt it. I told her she was nuts because earthquakes like never happened here and then I heard about it on the news and saw people talking about it on facebook. Apparently half the town felt it and half didnt lol. I asked her brother how bad it actually was and he said he barely even noticed it lol.

Rhode Island checking in. Felt it today while moving into my new house.

Felt up it here in Mass too. X) My cats were tearing around the house and I thought someone blew up something. Well, until I turned on the news. Rare event for the East Coast. I think all we have here are some minor fault lines. They said it was shallow so that's why it was felt so far away. Scared the hell outta one of my friends though. XD

Michigan was too far away, but my friend from Pennsylvania felt it. Freaked her out.

I felt it here in Maryland. I think my dog tried to warn me it was coming because he would NOT leave my side for an hour before it happened (he usually sleeps on the couch all day until my dad gets home from work).

we barely felt it in Ottawa. It made my chair shake alittle but that was about it.

PA checking in. We certainly felt it here! The wierd thing was that we heard it before we felt it and thought a storm blew up really quick or something, then the building shook.

I stood there like idiot as I processed that it was not a storm but in fact an earthquake. Yeah, I'm slow.

Needless to say, the east coast was certainly caught off guard.

Phyress wrote:I felt it here in Maryland. I think my dog tried to warn me it was coming because he would NOT leave my side for an hour before it happened (he usually sleeps on the couch all day until my dad gets home from work).

Ha. According to my mom, our dog left for his crate about a minute before it happened. Then the cat leaped up, poofed out to three times her size and stood rigid.

I live in Missouri. I felt nothing, but believe me, Missouri is Tornado Alley, so I have seen some devastation caused by nature. And felt it. I was in a storm cellar once when a tornado ripped a HUGE tree right from its roots and it fell directly in front of the cellar's door. It terrified us. I was a child at the time, and the enormity of the situation didn't really hit me, so I was really more worried because our family dog was still outside at the time, but yeah, that shit happens here all the time. Just recently, Joplin, MO was hit HARD by tornadoes. Almost the entire town was wiped off the map by them. Nature is scary sometimes. And devastating. =(

Next time the quake needs to be bigger I didn't feel it in AZ (and yes I have felt quakes from Cali here before)

I'm sure the people who were at the epicenter of this appreciate that sentiment.

As for myself, considering I got to hear how my fiance's workplace shook....and he was several stories up....I can only facepalm at the idea it "needed to be bigger". Seriously?

Wow this is truely the year of the quake. First a big one in Christchurch and then another big one in japan and now you guys. Man mother nature loves quakes this year :S No one died right? cos then it would be better than the other two :S (and if anyone sadly did I hope it was not as many as the other two)