Friday, March 06, 2009

The Night We Felt the Earth Move


So the kids were in bed but not asleep, and Fixit and I were sitting on the loungeroom floor (old habits die hard I suppose - the new couch is perfectly comfortable) when the ground started shaking. Our brains could not make any sense of it. At all. We just sat there looking surprised for a few seconds. Vibrations, quite big ones, coming up through our floor.

Fixit at first accused the kids of rough-housing on the bunkbed, but really we knew it was a tremor. He's felt one before, years ago, but I never had. The only information that came into my completely freaked out brain was that everyone needed to stand under a door frame. So we did. I mean, the shaking had stopped by then but we still stood under the door-frames, just in case. As you do.

The kids were completely unnerved, and I think it was worse in the top bunk because Climber was fighting back a few frightened tears. We went out the front door to have a look. What were we expecting to see, crevices in the front yard? Everything was quiet and we were the only ones who came outside in our street.

The instinct in that situation is to reach out to others, so Fixit rang a friend who lives nearby, and his parents, and I came down to the computer where I watched Facebook and Twitter light up. Oddly comforting to hear about it from others.

Still haven't seen Bertie Wooster, who had been quite the psycho cat earlier that evening. Did he know? They say they do.

The kids were soothed and sent back to bed. It took a lot longer for my jumping nerves to calm. The thing is, I think, that here in Victoria, we're a little bit scared of Mother Nature right now.

23 comments:

  1. Wow! It's an almost indescribable feeling, isn't it? I mean, we tend to think that the one solid thing we have to rely on is the ground, but when that moves, it throws off the whole sense of what is right in the universe. At least for me. Glad everyone is okay, and BW TOTALLY knew what was going on. Funny how they do, isn't it?

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  2. I'm so glad you're all okay.

    (INDESCRIBABLY wonderful picture of C, too!)

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  3. Wow! The odds of my coming to visit you are getting larger by the day. I live in a nice, quiet area that is earthquake/landslide/flood free for a reason, you know.

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  4. Wow that sounds very scary. We just had a couple of earthquakes a few weeks ago about 30 miles from our house and I'm not sure New Jersey has ever had them before. What is going on with the world!

    Happy that everyone is ok.

    Much love from NJ,
    Sue
    xoxo

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  5. I will never forget the feeling of our office building in Sydney swaying as a result of the Newcastle earthquake. Still makes me feel sick.

    Thinking you better move to a purple weatherboard here in the mountains.

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  6. Yikes! That would frighten me, too.

    The only time I've ever felt a quake was when I was a child, and we were on holiday in New Zealand (back then I thought it was really cool!)

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  7. yes - I live bayside and a solid brick house on a cement block and the house shook. Cat was freaked out and hadn't been psycho at all.

    Like you I am a little in awe of mother nature.

    Maybe she's celebrating international women's day early.......

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  8. Didn't feel it - we're east, but I think too north - but I remember feeling one years ago. I was sitting on a stool and it swayed, lifting legs off the carpet!

    Though I think i've rather had enough of mother nature at the moment.

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  9. Ha, we did the same things - checked the street (for what?!) then hopped on Facebook and Twitter. Very freaky when your house moves.

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  10. The windows rattled and we all looked accusingly at the dog.

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  11. I remember feeling a few when we lived in California. It's pretty scary....let's you know that Mother Nature is the one in charge and we'd better shape up or she might get angry and not be responsible for her actions......

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  12. I'll tell you what, you explained it perfectly. I had my fist earthquake when I was in my 20's and it took a while for my brain to understand what was happening. I didn't trust the earth for quite a while.

    And that photo is freaken amazing!

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  13. I confess, I do have a bit of an The End Is Nigh, biblical fantasy going on...

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  14. I hope you have found Bertie now. I'm glad that I flew home on Monday (even though I flew home to a developing cyclone) because I would have no clue what to do either. Your door frame idea sounds very sensible. Did you all squeeze into one door frame or take one each?

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  15. I read about the earthquake down there! What on earth have you Victorians done to upset Mother Earth!!??

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  16. I grew up in an earthquake zone, so the noise and shaking was very familiar to me. Cats know way before we do. I remember one biggish earthquake when I was about 10 or 11, we were dropping a friend back at her house after school and her cats were going beserk, throwing themselves at the flyscreen doors, running in circles. About ten minutes later, the ground was shaking violently. Thos cats definitely knew what was coming.

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  17. Dear me, how alarming.

    Haven't visited for a few days and you have several interesting posts - what was I thinking of? Glad C and C are doing well at school (poor little tired C and poor stressed Stomper). Loved the picture of those bloggy people. Wish I'd been there...

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  18. Yep, cat's know. So do birds. They all go quiet. We lived in an earthquake-rich zone in New Zealand a few years ago in a ninety year old house. I would hear them coming, rumbling like a train and then the whole house would wobble like a jelly. It was actually quite cool We had at least one a month that was really obvious but the sensitive equipment that they measure them with in NZ records HUNDREDS a month.
    Glad you're all OK and weren't too scared! (Climber would definitely have had a wilder ride on the top bunk)

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  19. Comoing from earthquakey NZ I know the feeling well.
    Hope Bertie is home again, safe & sound.

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  20. The Twitter/Facebook effect was amazing I thought. A Reuter service for the masses.

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  21. We also felt our house 'jump' ... I also blamed the kids!!!!! Was it really 4.6???

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Don't let the cat get your tongue.