So we endured an earthquake here in central Canada. Apparently North America is getting squeezed in on the edges so we rumbled and buckled here in the middle. Awesome. The quake epicenter was 60 km north of us. Super awesome. When it happened i was alone in the house, just getting ready to tackle cleaning the sty i refer to as my studio/ office when i heard a weird noise. a rumbling noise that turned into shaking. Then harder shaking and before i knew i had shouted "earthquake!" tweeted that shit was falling off my walls as it shook, and still it just. kept. going. 30 seconds of shaking feels like forever.
Once I started to see things falling off the shelves in the office, heard more clanging and glass falling in the stairwell to the floor below me and the windows rattled I really started to wonder if this was It. I knew that if kept going much longer and started to shake any harder the house would fall in so I jumped under the door frame for a few seconds. I could hear the beams creaking and see the walls bouncing. I was really afraid. At this point, thank the universe, I could feel the rumble starting to ease, but it still kept going. I'm pretty sure the dogs, who moments before were under my feet, were barking and down on the main floor by this point. It was crazy and loud and chaotic I have no idea where they were when I was doing all this. I remember looking down the stairs at all the broken glass from falling pictures, and there the dogs were, at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me.
My only instinct as it started to decrease was to get the eff out of the house. I slid on the flip flops, grabbed my laptop (hello? twitter was the BEST for info, fast) my wallet, the dogs, the phone and out we went to the back porch. At that point I dumped everything on the patio table, locked to dogs in the back yard and headed through the house to the front. I needed to see wtf was going on with the neighbours. Needless to say people were everywhere. The elementary school next door was evacuated. The kids were pretty loud and freaked. People from the 18 floor apartment buildings across the street were emerging packed like mules with kids and pets. I can only imagine what that felt like for them when it shook. Neighbours shouted across the streets back and forth " did you feel that? what WAS that? are you ok? did your stuff fall off the walls?" Holy wow. Luckily everyone was fine. No structural damage that we can see. But I'm still shaken by it. Rattled on the inside.
Since cleaning up the obvious debris and straightening every single piece of art hanging in here I've also had to go around and straighten piles of books that had shifted, vases that had fallen over, glasses that now at on the edge of shelves. It's like everything that could move danced around a bit and settled a few inches from where it originally was. As the days have progresses I still keep fnding little reminders of the power a quake. I thought I'd just share them here.
Poor little guys.
Wow. Were we lucky.
Happy Saturday all!
♥ leel
