Late Friday night/early Saturday morning, Oklahoma experienced a series of small earthquakes. The first was a 4.7 magnitude earthquake that rumbled into town at 2:12am. Two aftershocks hit later in the same hour: a 3.4 magnitude at 2:27am, and a 2.7 one at 2:44am.
True to form, I slept through them all. So did Mason. The girls were out camping and said that they heard the windows rattling on their cabin.
Saturday night’s, however, was different. Morgan was already in bed. Mason, Susan and had been in the living room watching television when I noticed I was falling asleep. I had just got up off the floor, walked to the bedroom and laid down in my own bed when I heard what I thought was a low-flying plane. Our new house is about a mile from a small airpark, so we’ve heard a few prop jets fly overhead but nothing like that. As the bed began to vibrate and the rumbling noise got louder, it finally clicked: this is an earthquake! It was 10:53pm.
I leaped out of bed and ran to the living room. By the time Mason was already wide-eyed and in his mother’s lap. The two of them had taken shelter directly beneath the six largest windows in the house. Although Okies are well versed in what to do in the case of a tornado, this whole earthquake thing is new for us. We’ll work on that.
As quickly as it began it was over. I’d say the whole thing lasted 15-20 seconds. Nothing fell off the walls here or even fell over, although I heard reports of both from friends checking in.
How amazing are Facebook and Twitter? Within a minute of feeling the quake I saw 50 new Facebook updates scroll by, most of them just to say, “we felt it!” And I’ll bet they did, too. According to the United States Geological Society, last night’s earthquake measured 5.6, the biggest one ever recorded in Oklahoma. According to the Chicago Tribune, the earthquake was felt over 800 miles away in the south Chicago suburbs. Don’t worry, Grandma O — that was just Oklahoma saying “Hi!”
According to the local news, there were no reports of any injuries or major damage. Lots of people reported pictures falling off their walls and things falling off of shelves. I have to wonder what our old house would have looked like, with all of my old Star Wars action figures precariously perched on wobbly shelves. Everything that could have fallen off a shelf last month is, this month, either boxed up in our garage or sitting in our storage unit.
Morgan slept through it and Mason got sad thinking about the earthquakes in Japan.
“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake,
birds and snakes, an aeroplane,
Lenny Bruce is not afraid …”
It’s the end of the world (as I know it) … and I feel fine.
Wow, a 5.6 is a pretty good earthquake. Honestly, I am so used to feeling earthquakes once or twice a year here in San Diego I am on alert, but I don’t even bother getting up from my seat most of the time.
There was a long lasting rattler last year during my 2 year olds nap. I did head upstairs to check on him.