I was sitting at my desk at work and everything just started shaking. Then it stopped. And it shook again. In my head I was thinking "Who IS that?! Wow this person has some serious heavy steps! He/She should be passing through any second now..." ........... Nothing. Then the possibility of earthquake came in mind, but I quickly brushed it aside. "This is Delaware, we don't have earthquakes." I thought maybe I was losing my mind. So the fact that everyone else stuck their heads up and started to look around like startled squirrels proved me wrong.
News confirmed that the residents of the peaceful, usually-natural-disaster free East Coast experienced a tremor from a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in VA. Personally, I didn't think it was a huge deal, I've experienced earthquakes before. But for a lot of East Coasters, it was a cherry-popper. Online social networking sites were flooded with updates about the quake, the wireless phone lines were all down, and there was some "end of the world" theories spreading around. All was acceptable since it's such a rare occurrence that an earthquake of that magnitude ever strikes the East Coast. It's like Californians freaking out about having snow... The end of the world MUST be really coming... -_-
After the clearly devastating disaster (total sarcasm if you haven't caught it), my mom and I were talking about what we should do in case of a REAL groundbreaking, earth shattering, over 7 magnitude earthquake: get under a desk or lie on the ground nearest a stable structure, ie. kitchen counters. And if you just happen to be carrying a hard wooden board around, you can use that as protection... or take a small mattress pad and lie in the bathtub. But really, who's going to have time for that?! If you happen to be in a high-rise when the quake happens, you're better off just staying wherever you are, there's really no point in running to the stairs. Leave it to destiny.
Do Anything BUT facebooking/tweeting/blogging about the disaster while it is still happening and you are still in the danger zone. You'd be surprised how many people resort to tweeting "Hmm, the tornado is coming" instead of running for cover. Um. Like telling your devoted followers you might be in the middle of a tornado will somehow save yo ass. Please save your postings for AFTER you are sure of your own safety. Please.
This concludes today's nonsense. Thanks for reading.
