Shake It Up
Oklahoma is known for a certain type of natural disaster: tornadoes. In fact, that seems to be one of the things that people think of most when they think of Oklahoma. Not that I've ever been in a tornado, or actually ever even seen one. (Though yes, I have had to clamber into the closet on occasion with my water bottle and non-open-toed shoes. Not as often as you might think, though. People who have grown up in Oklahoma tend to ignore the tornado warnings and watches about 90% of the times that they're issued.) In terms of other natural disasters, though, that's about our lot.
Until now. Because 2011 decided right from the start that it was going to be Extreme Weather Year. So far, we've had a huge blizzard that buried the city for a week (and managed to cancel my trip to Washington, DC, and New York City), enough rain in the spring to kill half the new plants I bought for the garden, followed by the hottest summer on record, with over 30 days of 100+ temperatures, and no rain, and now . . . . earthquakes.
I actually missed the first one. Apparently a 4.7 quake was not enough to wake me up at 2:13 on Saturday morning, though it woke Matt up. He even wrote down the time, just to make sure that it really was an earthquake. My mom also felt it, and I was complaining to them about having slept through it. Which was probably not the smartest idea in the world, given my family's history. There was that time that my mom and aunt saw their first tornado dip down out of the clouds in Iowa and my dad missed it entirely, leading to him complaining bitterly about having lived in Oklahoma all his life and never having seen a tornado. That ended with them getting their '56 Chevy surrounded by 4 tornadoes on a deserted Iowa road and my aunt getting sucked out of the car. (She was mainly unhurt, mostly because she's a biologist and knew enough to roll into a ditch and wrap her arms in the weeds with deep root systems.) But anyway, you see why I started feeling nervous about complaining about missing the earthquake.
Luckily, though, it doesn't seem to have set off the New Madrid fault yet. But I did get to feel an earthquake. Two, in fact. The bigger one (a 5.6, the biggest Oklahoma has ever had) came on Saturday night. We were at the house of some friends, and suddenly the wine bottles in the chiller were rattling around and the floor was moving. I was actually surprised at how unnerving it was. Feeling it build up and not knowing if it would just keep on building, and realizing that there wasn't a single thing I could do to stop it. At least with a tornado, even if it hits the house down the street from you, it could leave your house completely intact. But an earthquake hits everyone. Funnily, the third earthquake on Monday (the second that I felt) came about five minutes after I got a text warning from my university about a tornado warning for the area. Good warning, wrong natural disaster.
Still, I'm actually glad to have felt them. It's one of those experiences that you read about and see movies about (and pretend to live through by getting on the simulators in science museums), but actually getting to feel it is something different. I gained some experience points, you could say.
That said, I don't think I need to gain any more of them . . . .
Until now. Because 2011 decided right from the start that it was going to be Extreme Weather Year. So far, we've had a huge blizzard that buried the city for a week (and managed to cancel my trip to Washington, DC, and New York City), enough rain in the spring to kill half the new plants I bought for the garden, followed by the hottest summer on record, with over 30 days of 100+ temperatures, and no rain, and now . . . . earthquakes.
I actually missed the first one. Apparently a 4.7 quake was not enough to wake me up at 2:13 on Saturday morning, though it woke Matt up. He even wrote down the time, just to make sure that it really was an earthquake. My mom also felt it, and I was complaining to them about having slept through it. Which was probably not the smartest idea in the world, given my family's history. There was that time that my mom and aunt saw their first tornado dip down out of the clouds in Iowa and my dad missed it entirely, leading to him complaining bitterly about having lived in Oklahoma all his life and never having seen a tornado. That ended with them getting their '56 Chevy surrounded by 4 tornadoes on a deserted Iowa road and my aunt getting sucked out of the car. (She was mainly unhurt, mostly because she's a biologist and knew enough to roll into a ditch and wrap her arms in the weeds with deep root systems.) But anyway, you see why I started feeling nervous about complaining about missing the earthquake.
Luckily, though, it doesn't seem to have set off the New Madrid fault yet. But I did get to feel an earthquake. Two, in fact. The bigger one (a 5.6, the biggest Oklahoma has ever had) came on Saturday night. We were at the house of some friends, and suddenly the wine bottles in the chiller were rattling around and the floor was moving. I was actually surprised at how unnerving it was. Feeling it build up and not knowing if it would just keep on building, and realizing that there wasn't a single thing I could do to stop it. At least with a tornado, even if it hits the house down the street from you, it could leave your house completely intact. But an earthquake hits everyone. Funnily, the third earthquake on Monday (the second that I felt) came about five minutes after I got a text warning from my university about a tornado warning for the area. Good warning, wrong natural disaster.
Still, I'm actually glad to have felt them. It's one of those experiences that you read about and see movies about (and pretend to live through by getting on the simulators in science museums), but actually getting to feel it is something different. I gained some experience points, you could say.
That said, I don't think I need to gain any more of them . . . .
No comments have been added yet.
