Reality Check

Have you ever had one of those moments where something just hits you? Kind of like "wow...I really live in Washington, its not just a vacation." Well, I already had my "I really live in Washington" moment and today I had my second reality check moment. An earthquake. Yes, thats right - an earthquake. In all fairness, I didn't know it was an earthquake at the time, but suddenly the fact that I live in a place that has several fault lines running underneath it, and is surrounded by 5 active volcanoes, seems a little scary.

Mr. V woke up this morning around 4:30 to get ready for work. Around 5:30ish, I woke up and felt the bed shaking. At the time I didn't think much about it. Whenever one of our cats stands up and stretches it makes whatever piece of furniture he/she is sitting on vibrate. In the past, whenever a cat has done that, we've joked around and said "Was that an earthquake? Nope, just a cat." Well, this morning I felt the bed shake and when I looked up to see which cat was stretching, I was a little surprised to see a bed free of cats. Again though, I didn't think much about it. I was annoyed that I had woken up and chalked it up to Mr. V making noise as he got ready for work.

It wasn't until a few hours later that I heard a news report that there was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake in Seattle at 5:30 this morning. The first shock I had was that I had no idea you could feel a 4.6 earthquake (sometimes I love the fact that I grew up in a bubble). The second shock was that not only can you feel a 4.6 magnitude earthquake, but Seattle isn't just right down the road from us. Its close, but at the same time, not really. Which means that if the epicenter was directly below Seattle, and it could be felt here on Whidbey Island, then I better learn something about earthquakes!

I have to admit that I have a mixture of shock and denial about the whole thing. Part of me thinks its pretty cool that I felt it. Mr. V claims that he didn't feel anything, but he was rushing around getting ready for work at the time and not in a still position anywhere. He originally told me that I was imagining things and there is no way I felt anything. He ate his words though when he pulled up a map of the area. The map was various different areas surrounding Seattle and it was colored in to show how much of the quake was felt by people. Whidbey Island was entirely colored in, with most of it showing that people felt mild vibrations, while a few on the south end felt moderate movement.

Soooo yeah...this was a wakeup call. I don't do well with natural disasters. I grew up in a place that rarely had any type of natural disaster. Maybe a blizzard here and there or a small hurricane, but thats all. Earthquakes are a new thing to me.

Add this to the fact that I just finished watching the news where they reported on today's earthquake and compared it to the earthquake Seattle experienced in 2001. Apparently they occured along the same fault line and they were nice enough to show me some scary pictures of the damage from 2001. They went on to talk about a volcano that's about to erupt in Alaska, and how that is not connected to today's earthquake here (at least, not that they know of). However, they did point out that this area is surrounded by 5 active volcanoes, one of which erupted 28 years ago (Mt. St. Helens) and has been recently rebuilding itself. A news reporter cheerfully pointed out that a severe earthquake in this area could possibly trigger volcanic activity. Awesome.

So that was my wakeup call. Earthquakes and volcanoes. Not exactly something I have prior experience in, and not something that I hope to gain experience in. I can handle a faint rumbling, but anything more than that is going to send me packing back to the east coast!