Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On

We interrupt today's regularly scheduled Flashback Friday to bring you an important news bulletin:  we had not one, but two earthquakes in the 'Ville today.  Yes, you read that correctly - two earthquakes.  The first one jolted us all awake at 5:37 this morning.  I had a rough night, and didn't get to sleep until about 3:00, only to be jolted awake at 5:37 by the extremly loud rumbling sound and the shaking of the house.  The first second when I bolted upright in bed, I thought it might have been a very violent storm.  But I remembered that there were no storms in the forecast.  Then I knew it was an earthquake. 

I'm almost blind without my contacts, but when I was sitting up in bed, I could clearly see the mini blinds on my windows shaking and I could see and feel the bed moving.  I wasn't really scared, but I was "concerned" that the loud rumbling seemed to last for ten minutes.  In reality, the geologists said that it lasted about 28 seconds.  Anyhoo, my first thought after I kept hearing the rumbling was "Our house is going to fall down." 

As soon as the rumbling quit, I grabbed my glasses and ran across the hall to check on the 'Rents.  If I could have seen their faces, I'm sure they would have both had "WTF?" expressions like I'm sure I did.  After realizing the house was still standing, we went to the family room and turned on the TV, and sure enough, the news reporter said "I'm not real sure what happened, but I think we just had an earthquake."  Within ten minutes, reports were coming in that the quake was a 5.4 -- pretty darned big by Louisville standards. 

Fortunately for us, the quake was centered in Illinois, on the Wabash fault, and damage here in the 'Ville was minimal.  The only significant damage to report was on an older office building downtown at Third Street and Kentucky.  Some bricks on the outer facade had fallen off and were on the street.  Other than that, we came out unscathed.  And let me interject with a bit of Puddin trivia:  the building that was damaged in the April 18, 2008 quake wasthe building where I worked at my first job. 

Needless to say, this was the talk of the office.  We talked about it all day long. In fact, we were talking about it in my cubicle at 11:16 when a very big tremor, which was a 4.6 quake, occurred.  We all felt the shaking, and saw things moving in our cubicle.  The first thing I thought was "Please don't let our autographed photo of Susan Lucci fall down from the wall." 

On the evening news tonight, the experts were saying we could feel "sizable" tremors for the next week.  I just hope they happen in the daytime and not at night, so I can get some sleep.