Earthquakes and Hurricanes

Tuesday, August 23 our area experienced a 5.8 earthquake, which was a dramatic and very rare event for us. I was at my desk (where else?!) and the house began to shake with a rhythmic pattern, and the noise was deafening. I could not understand what was happening, and at first did not think of an earthquake. It is just not what comes to mind when you grow up in the mid-Atlantic area of the country. I tore downstairs as quickly as I could, since my reptilian brain wanted out of that house, pronto, and when I got to the kitchen I saw my sister, nephew and the twins in the pool, gawping up at the house in wonderment, mouths hanging open. I truly thought for a second that one of those large personnel carrier helicopters was landing on my roof or something, lol. Then I realized the sound and shaking was coming from all directions, and it must be an earthquake. 


I made it outside, and they told me they could not feel anything while floating in the pool, but they saw the house and the plants and furniture on the deck shaking violently. The dogs were not particularly alarmed, though they were eager to head outside to confront this potential threat, until they got out there and could not determine where the threat originated! They were confused but not at all upset. I was very surprised that there was no damage to my house. The shaking was such that I immediately felt like my solidly built and well constructed home was the flimsiest thing ever built. Nothing even fell off the walls like they did in 2000 when we had a much smaller quake here.


Next up, Hurricane Irene. Today is 8/27/11 and the hurricane is pretty much here, at 4:18 p.m. A lot of gusty wind and we've had a ton of rain since early this morning. The pool is overflowing. A few branches down but not too bad. We still have power, but I expect that to change pretty soon - it has flickered off and back on several times already.


Rick is at the boat in Kinsale, where the storm is going to be much worse, and I wish he'd come home. He wants to be there to adjust lines on the boat as the storm surge causes the water to rise many feet higher than normal high tide, but I think it will be dangerous for him to be there. Also, if the gusts get more than 50 mph they'll close the bridges, and he needs them to get home. I don't want him to be injured or trapped in the direct path of the storm, where "devastating" winds are forecasted. We've got "damaging" winds forecasted here. This storm reminds everyone of Isabel in 2003, which caused us to be without power for 6 days, though not all neighborhoods had it that bad. My sister, who lived no more than a couple of miles away, lost power for only one day with that storm.


So, with Isabel fresh in our minds, we've made quite a few preparations, and I think we've done what we can. We have two generators, a small one that is relatively quiet and can be expected to run all of my fish tank filters, since they all have pretty low wattage, and also a fan or two, and then we have a very large generator we got when Isabel hit, and that one can run the refrigerator and a few other things if it looks like power will be out long-term.


Maybe I've got selective memory, but I grew up here and I don't recall hurricanes. Not at all. I'll have to ask my mother, who will be able to tell me more, but since we've moved back here after living in Florida for 9 years we've had more trouble with hurricanes here than in South Florida. In fact, the reason we moved back to Virginia at all was because of the devastation of hurricane Andrew in Homestead, which alarmed my husband enough to want to move away. He was in construction and volunteered his time to inspect homes there to determine if they could be saved or were a total loss from the storm. It hit him very hard to see first-hand what a storm like that could do to a community. Then we move back to Virginia and have had several hurricane scares, and a tropical storm (Gaston) that caused widespread flooding here.


I will check back in when all is said and done.