DC had an Earthquake! DC had an Earthquake!

DC had an Earthquake!  Let me tell you, it was a little insane.

Sidenote:  I realize that the East Coast is making a big deal about it and hopefully I can explain why (other than the fact that DC had an earthquake!).

Today, at 1:51 pm Eastern time a 5.8 (or 5.9 depending on who's reporting) hit the east coast.  The epicenter was in a small town in Virginia about 80 miles from DC (again, depending on who's reporting).  I understand that 80 miles is far away, but when you take into account that this Earthquake was felt as far north as Toronto and as far south as Atlanta, 80 miles away is pretty damn close.

I was at work when the Earthquake hit.  I was sitting in the control room talking to my two coworkers waiting on our patient to get dressed.  The ground suddenly started shaking.  Then a slight pause. Then a lot more shaking.  There is no feeling in the world like the ground moving underneath you.  The ground is supposed to stay still.  It is not supposed to be moving.

Maybe it's where I grew up, but give me thunderstorms and tornados any day over an Earthquake.

After the Earthquake was over, we had to make sure our patients were okay and deal with camera issues (Of course there were camera issues.  Our camera goes down when a stretcher hits it, much less an Earthquake).  We started calling and texting family to let them know we were okay.  It wasn't very long before we had no cell service or landline service.  I was lucky to get a text off to my Dad before everything went down.  As soon as we were given the green light to continue with our patients, we started talking about it.

This is where I hope to explain some things.  I have only lived here for about a year.  My first thought was somewhere along the lines of construction.  I knew the camera next to us was having some issues, but I could not figure out what they were doing to make the ground shake.  It took a few seconds to realize what was going on.  I had a hard time believing we had been hit with an Earthquake.  My two co workers, however, worked in DC when 9/11 happened.  Big difference.  Their first thought was that we were being attacked again.  That's a terrifying thought.  That's the reason that a lot of downtown buildings were evacuated.  

So, the big deal isn't that we had an Earthquake.  It's that it wasn't a terror attack.  Every news story has a sense of relief with it.  All you West Coasters quit making fun of us.  We have a good reason to be freaking out.