I grew up with tornados (I lived in Dallas) so I never experienced many earthquakes. My first one was in the middle of the night in Walnut Creek, CA while sleeping in a hotel in the late 1980’s (Ramada Renaissance, I think). I’d taken a late night flight from Boston to California and was sound asleep in preparation for an early morning meeting at one of my California clients (Contra Costa Endocrine Associates.) I woke up, noticed the ceiling moving in the opposite direction of the bed, then noticed it going the other way, then noticed it going the other way, and thought I was having a heart attack or an aneurysm. About 15 seconds later it stopped and I laid in bed for a minute or so trying to figure out what was going. “Earthquake?” popped into my head, I called down to the front desk, and got a busy signal. Yup. “Hmmm – what do I do?” I didn’t know, so I went back to sleep. The next morning I read in the paper that it was a 6–something and one person died when they got disoriented and jumped out a window.
Amy – on the other hand – grew up with earthquakes. So – tonight as we were both reading as she was finishing her tea – in advance of a trip to Anchor Point – she looked up and said “Earthquake!” It took me a few seconds to figure out what she meant. We went downstairs to our computers, went to the Alaska Earth Information Center site, and didn’t see anything. A few minutes later, an earthquake (3.97 – let’s call it a 4) was reported at 7:39 PM AKDT 52 miles from Homer. It was short (only a second or two) – but it was definitely an earthquake.