There I was, last Tuesday night (October 30). Minding my own business, at home. Vegging out on my sofa, watching TV.
It was a little after 8:00 p.m. (the cable box said exactly 8:05) and The Daily Show’s nightly re-run (of the previous evening’s broadcast) had just begun.
I vaguely remember that I was laughing out loud at something when: HOLY SHIT!
All of sudden it happened. It seemed as if I were, for a moment there, floating above my sofa. As if some immense cosmic force had picked me up with giant invisible hands and was joking around, having its way with me. The whole experience was a little bewildering, a lot frightening, and, weirdly, somewhat exciting.
Unlike the last time (which was actually my first time) I found myself in an earthquake situation, when I didn’t know exactly what was going on…this time there was no mistaking things: this was an earthquake! Holy craperino (I thought…), this is amazing! (And: I just hope I live through this!)
I was picked up and shaken once, then it seemed if as if there were a slight hesitation; subsequently I found myself being shaken again, even more vigorously the second time. The entire experience lasted only a few seconds, I suppose (quite literally, time seemed suspended), but that was enough for my thought processes (i.e, panic) to kick in and wonder if the whole apartment was going to detach from the building and slide down the cliff: with me scratching and clawing the entire way. To my ultimate, very painful, demise.
Then things stopped. Just. Stopped. The Daily Show continued on. The world switched back to normal, at least in my neighborhood. I continued to think and wonder: where was the epicenter? How far away was it? What must it have been like to be right ON TOP? How big was this thing, anyway?
Here’s the deal: news reports of the event listed it as a 5.6 quake, with the epicenter five miles northeast of the Alum Rock neighborhood of San Jose, along the Calaveras Fault. (I’m not exactly sure how far that is from me…but I suspect it’s at least 50 miles.) This temblor just happens to be the largest one to hit the Bay Area since the (6.9-magnitude) Loma Prieta disaster in 1989. (I safely followed news reports of that one from home on October 17…as I was watching, on TV in Corvallis, Oregon, the third game of the World Series.)
Just so you know: I’m keeping score. My arrival in the Bay Area was greeted by a 4.2 quake on July 20…just 18 days after I moved here. (It seems like only yesterday!) And, here I am again…this time experiencing the largest shaker since 1989. How (NOT!) lucky can I get?
One of the reports of Tuesday’s quake indicated that “the fault ruptured at a depth of 5.7 miles and the shaking was felt as far north as Eugene, Oregon.”
Well, good. I really wouldn’t want to have all the fun to myself. So, tell me: did any of my fine friends in the Great State of Oregon feel this thing, too?
Soundtrack Suggestion
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I just lose control
Down to my very soul
I get a hot and cold all over
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down,
Tumbling down, tumbling down...