Shake Rattle Roll

This morning, I found myself researching earthquake kits on the website of that community of survivalist I came across over the summer.

What prompted me to do so was the earthquake we had last night.

It was the strongest I’ve felt in decades and sent seniors fleeing from their units in the cold, in the dark.

I’m not sure that was the correct action to take. I recall hearing “outside” puts you in the path of breaking glass, falling bricks, and that one should get in a door jam, under a table or an enclosed area, such as the bathroom.

It wasn’t funny, isn’t funny, but I can’t stop laughing at people’s reactions.

One neighbor said she was already in bed, just about to fall asleep and, when the shaking rattling rolling and thunderous sound as though a truck hit the building happened, she sat straight up and yelled, “Oh sh*t!”.

The Seer grabbed her purse, her keys and ran out the building. Her son’s flight had been cancelled due to weather, so he was still here last night and, when the quake hit, he was right behind her running out of the building yelling, “Mom, where are you going?”

She didn’t know. She was just running.

I myself was sitting in front of the laptop at a heavy solid wood table. Feeling as though I was going to be tossed onto the floor, I leaned forward and held onto the table for dear life.

Once it was over, I didn’t even bother to get up when I heard my depressed next door neighbor open her door and head downstairs to discuss what just happened with other residents I could hear outside talking.

I glanced around, didn’t see anything broken or on the edge of falling, except one can fell from the cabinet, went back to what I was doing.

THEN, a few minutes later comes the aftershock, which was as strong as the usual earthquakes we get. And then there was another quick quake this morning. So thinking I’d better start paying attention to predictions that “the big one is coming”, as though the one we'd just had wasn't big enough, my mind turned to an earthquake kit.

The kits at the survivalist store are sold out, but didn’t interest me anyway – a lot of freeze dried food. All I can think of that would work for me is peanut butter, energy bars, nuts, dried fruit, water.

I’m just in the thinking-about-it-stage right now but, if we have another quake this week, I’ll be taking it as a sign to get a kit together … NOW.

Checking in with the folks in the Community Room, to see if we’re doing anything for New Year’s Eve (we’re not), I found earthquake damage to the Community Room ceiling.

The crack runs all the way across, from one end of the ceiling to the other.