Earthquake!

In case you haven't heard, we had a New England earthquake last night. The epicenter was near Hollis Center, Maine, which is about 60 miles north of Newburyport. According to local news, the granite ridge beneath Newburyport (just up the hill from our house) makes us more likely to feel seismic activity when it occurs.

And feel it we did!

I realize that any West Coast readers are probably laughing at our reaction to a 4.0 quake, but this is the first time that this East Coaster has ever felt one. So here's what it was like, as experienced by terremoto neophytes.

We were in the dining room having dinner (a little later than usual, since it was after 7:00, but Tuesdays are always a crazy day for us schedule-wise). We felt a small rumble, and figured it was a truck going down the street. But when there was no truck, and when the rumbling got bigger and louder, everyone froze. We all stared at each other, wide-eyed, as everything around was rattling and shaking. Since we were in the dining room, we got an earful of the china rattling away in the cupboard. 

By the time we got on our feet, it was over, except for a last shake. The whole thing lasted between five and 10 seconds, but it was one of those situations in which time seems to slow down because you remember each thought that is flying through your brain.

My first such thought (after the truck theory was disproven) was that the furnace was going to explode in the basement right beneath us — it definitely felt like the rumbling was coming up from the ground. When Kirk pointed out that we had turned the heat off, we were pretty sure we had just lived through (tee-hee) an earthquake. 

A quick post to Facebook and a call to a nearby friend confirmed that it wasn't some scary structural issue with our old house. We had a few tears from the dramatic child, lots of excited chatter, and then finished our supper. 

Later I figured out what we heard crash during the earthquake:

And that is the extent of our damage.