28 August 2011

I Felt the Earth Move, or Come on, Irene.


So Tuesday we had an earthquake. We all felt it at work, even though the news media apparently don't think anything exists north of Boston. It's not my first tremor and nothing even fell off a shelf, so it was really no big shakes (ba dum dum *ching*), but it was kind of fun to get to experience it.

Now, of course, there's Hurricane Irene, which will be downgraded fairly soon to AA+ tropical storm status. Apparently, this is "the worst storm the East Coast has seen in 50 60 70 100 1000 years!" Also apparently, "East Coast" in this case means New York City. For us, it's not going to be much worse than some of the nor'easters we've gotten over the past few years. For North Carolina, it certainly wasn't any worse than the double whammy of Bertha & Fran in 1996, or the devastation and widespread flooding of Floyd in 1999.

At any rate, my only concern is whether it will keep me from coming home after work this evening. Although I'm admittedly blasé about the storm as a whole, I'm not stupid enough to drive into dangerous winds and flooding, if that should occur. I just hope it doesn't make all the crazies insistent upon coming to see us today.

3 comments:

Lisa/knitnzu said...

One of the geology guys said that they started getting phone calls at about 5-10 minutes to 2 (I think it happened at 1:50). We didn't feel it up here, or at least I don't know anybody who did. Steve (the geology guy) said that the granitic rocks carried the tremor up the Appalachians, and also something about clay-ey soils and the earth feeling like jello. We're going out w/ the dogs for a walk in the rain before the storm really ocmes.

Chris said...

Here's hoping you'll be able to drive home after work...

mary jane said...

There was one in the 90's that I felt. I grew up in Seattle so I knew instantly what it was. But when I remembered where I was I tried to convince myself it was a huge truck driving by.