EARTHQUAKE!

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40179595/ciim_display.html

I had just got off the phone with J and wandered over to the doorway of D’s room cuz he was watching Smallville when we felt two bumps: brrrr-rroomph, brooomph! like that. The first one was longer than the second. D paused his episode and turned around, wide-eyed. He said, “That was an earthquake.” I said, “No, that was just someone jumping up and down upstairs.” He said “No, that was an earthquake.” I said, “No, I think it came from up there” pointing up and to my right.

Then I remembered V’s link to usgs.gov! So I went there. No, nothing, the last earthquake on the “California” page (http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/index.html) was sept 22. Hmm. “Click on New Earthquake!” D said. Ok… ah, a form to report what we felt. So I filled in all the info (realized that I should have looked in my room to see if the things hanging from my ceiling were moving, like a little flying pig with a purple treasure that J gave me)… then pressed submit at 4:32AM… then after the “thank you for submitting what you felt” message I noticed it said that the page was updated every five minutes. So I navigated back there… and LO AND BEHOLD there was a 3.2 magnitude earthquake at 4:25 near piedmont, ca. I clicked on the map–no colored bits. “Hey I bet we were the first ones to submit a report,” I said. “Yesss!!” D said. After a few minutes I refreshed… and ta-da! colored bits!

Now there are lots of colored bits. Tons of people in Oakland and SF are up right now filling out the form at this site. You can mouse over–right now there are only 3 reports (one of which is us!) from 94704… there were 6 reports from 94720, which is the dorms…

This website is SO COOL.

edit 5:11AM: now there are 2 pages of reports! Right after we submitted ours, there was only one page and you didn’t even have to scroll very much to see them all…

My seventh birthday was in a few days, and I was stuffing goody bags for my party when the ground started to shake. I ran into the study and crouched under a large desk. A cabinet door swung open and I saw wine glasses dancing inside–I wanted to run away becuase I was afraid that the glasses would fall and shatter and injure me, but I was more afraid of moving. None of the glasses fell or broke, but a large metal-frame bookshelf in my parents’ room totally collapsted, spilling books everywhere. My next-door neighbors lost almost every single one of their dishes, smashed to bits on their kitchen floor. I stayed underneath tables for two days because I was afraid of aftershocks. I remember a friend who lived around the corner came by and tried to cheer me up and get me to go outside, but I stayed crouched and tense, with my hand pressed to the ground as if I could keep it from shaking.