2003-04-29 - 11:03 p.m.

Earthquake

I'll make this short.  At 5 o'clock this morning I was awakened by a loud rumbling and then a noticeable shaking of the house.  There was an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale.  Not too bad, no one was hurt, but it was surprising.  We don't normally have earthquakes here in Georgia.  I can't remember there being one here in my home state during my lifetime.

Earthquakes are common out west in California.  And there have been a few in Alabama in the past decade. But not so much in Georgia.

I was asleep and then suddenly I was awake. The house was shaking and I could hear a low rumbling noise.  It sounded familiar.  It felt familiar.   Maybe I am remembering the movie Earthquake in the early 70's (in Sensourround!)

I got out of bed and turned on the light.  At that moment I figured it was an earthquake.  I remember my mother telling me a story about my great grandfather preaching in church one Sunday when a quake happened.  This was about 1919, 1920 or so.  The congregation thought my great grandfather had done it.

By the time I got to the door the rumbling had stopped.  I looked around the house and everything was fine.  I went to the front door and looked outside.  Petey was lying in the front yard. He looked up at me and wagged his tail and did not look in any way upset.

I don' know what I expected to see in the yard.   Maybe I thought there would be a huge chasm or a my driveway would be turned upside down.  But everything was fine.

I went back to bed figuring that when my alarm went off I would hear all the news reports of the earthquake.  I was right.

Lots of people I talked to today felt nothing.  When I got home tonight I talked to my sister about it and she said she noticed nothing.  She only woke up because she heard me open the front door

Later in the afternoon when I started thinking about it I got a little freaked out.  I mean, we had a fucking earthquake.  What the hell?

So there it is.  April 29, 2003 around 5:00 a.m.  Earthquake in Georgia.   Weird.

Jimmy
 

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