I Felt the Earth Move Under My Feet

One of the more interesting things about where I live is the frequent brushes with natural "events", for lack of a better word, namely earthquakes and typhoons. (A typhoon is the same kind of tropical storm as a hurricane; for some reason when these storms develop west of the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean, they are called typhoons, not to be confused with a tsunami, which is essentially a giant wave that is generated by large undersea earthquakes.)

Anyhow, we had a really mean typhoon season this year. At least four that made it to category 4, plus two that became super-typhoons. (Yes, there is such a thing called a super-typhoon and imagine finding that out only when there is one heading directly for your house.) Living in the city, a safe distance from the coastlines that take a lashing, we were relatively sheltered from these storms and endured them with almost childlike anticipation as they passed through. (Who wouldn't get excited about the chance to stay home from work with a few bottles of wine, a couple decks of cards, and a wide selection of downloaded entertainment to watch with friends all day?)

I grew up in upstate New York where frequent blizzards would result in the occasional "snow day" for school children, and sometimes the working population if the storm was disruptive enough. Imagine my surprise at learning that in other parts of the world, they have this same kind of weather perk, only on a sub-tropical island it is known as a "typhoon day". It's very cool. It seemed as if every other week this summer (typhoon season) I had a day off that happened to fall on a Friday or a Monday, making the weekend an extra long one. (For all of the green people out there, yes I understand that the increase in number and severity of these storms is likely due to global warming, and yes it does concern me greatly. I still think storms are cool. And also, I'm not trying to be insensitive to those who survived the wrath of Katrina this year-a disaster compounded by a recovery effort that only this administration could so royally screw up-and do understand that storms can be dangerous and destructive.)

In the last week, we have experienced two of the biggest earthquakes since we arrived last January. Early one morning last week, I was jolted out of a sound sleep, awoke with a gasp and instinctively put a death-grip on my husband's thigh as he lay asleep next to me. (I guess the purpose in doing this was to both wake him up as well as make sure he was there and going through it with me.) That particular earthquake turned out to be a 5.8 on the Richter scale, but the epicenter was a good distance away so we only felt it as a 2 or 3. That typically happens when we experience earthquakes here: the epicenters seem to be closer to the fault lines in the ocean which are further south and east of us, so we end up only feeling the residual shaking. We used to swap earthquake stories with our ex-pat friends after a notable one, thus exposing our newbie status, and we were told repeatedly,"If the movement is from side-to-side, there is really no danger, even if it's a big one; when the movement is up-and-down, that's when you get the real damage."

I don't know if that is true or not but I found out what they meant about a half an hour ago. I was on my couch surfing the web when the whole building jumped. Yes, folks, today I learned that my apartment building can jump. It kind of felt like hitting a speed bump in a car at high speed. It was jarring. And things fell off the tables, windows rattled, my cat shot off the couch to hunt the intruder who knocked the pencil jar off the desk in the bedroom, blah, blah, blah. I checked the local earthquake report and discovered that it was only a 4 on the Richter scale, but that it wasn't very deep (only 9k) and more than that, the epicenter was about 5k east of where I live. That means it felt like a 4, not a 3 or a 2, like usual. It wasn't all that scary, and only lasted about 20 seconds, but I'd be lying if I said my heart wasn't in my throat and I didn't freeze solid until it was over. (Yes, I know you're supposed to get to a door frame or something, but I was lying down with a cozy blanket and my computer in my lap--I'm still here, so I guess it's not that big of a deal.)

I was home alone at the time and had no one to share it with, so I thought I'd share it with you. As natural disasters go, this doesn't even rate. But I would call it an "event". And as far as storms and earthquakes being cool and all, I'm pretty sure I'd choose, if I could, to never find out if there is such a thing as a super-earthquake.