5.9 Magnitude Earthquake...Really?

I guess you can say “it’s a day to remember”; here I am a California Girl living in Virginia and what do I get….nope not a hurricane….not a tornado….a fricken earthquake; the quake hit at 1:51pm, 8/23/11. Are you kidding me? I thought I left all that behind me when I left Cali, Japan, and Guam!! The quake hit about 80 miles south of here near Richmond.

I’m fine, no damage, just a twinge of rattled nerves. I was home sick from work, typing an email to my sister-n-law when it hit. Within split seconds my brain went from…BIG truck, to bomb, to oh crap…quake. I live on the 13th floor of a high rise and trust me, I felt it; my walls were moving, my pictures moved, but nothing fell off my walls. I know how to anchor things down. Thank goodness it was a rolling quake and not the jolt kind that do more damage.

Don’t think bomb is a big stretch; not when you live here and not when there was a news report at 5am about an SUV found with explosives in it at a park and not after the 9-11 attacks.

Once the shaking stopped, I opened my door and saw my neighbors running for their lives, yelling at me to"get out”. I almost laughed but figured I better check and make sure it really was an earthquake. No smoke, no fire, and no other signs of an attack; good to go.

News of damages is still coming in but I did hear that the National Cathedral has "substantial damage". At least three of the four pinnacles on the central tower have fallen off and the central tower appears to be leaning; including cracks throughout the limestone blocks. The pinnacles are the top stones on the cathedral's towers. I just hope the National Cathedral is fixed before my Mom comes to visit. It’s the one place that she really wants to see when she visits. I called her and told her about the damage; I didn’t want her to hear about it on the news.

The Washington Monument was damaged and engineers are studying ways to repair cracks at the top.

I just read there is a hole in the ceiling at Union Station at the main entrance. DC is not built for earthquakes.