Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On!!!

Post date: Sep 2, 2014 4:09:24 AM

This is an excerpt from an email to my Mom about the recent Napa Earthquake. (I now live about 25 miles from there!!!). Enjoy!

-- It was pretty scary at first, it was a violent shaking at first and then it was a rolling...like being on a boat that was moving around....only it was more like the boat was swaying on a horizontal axis rather than vertical. Not sure if that makes sense. Like a rocking chair laid on its side and rocking. I woke up first and it must have been instinct, I yelled "earthquake"!!! And ran toward Hudson's room with Leslie following close behind. We opened his door and looked inside, he was fine and nothing was moving that bad in his room. Les and I just sat on the floor in the hallway waiting for the shaking to stop and then subsequently the swaying too. As soon as the worst was over we looked again at Hudson and saw he had slept through the whole thing!

It was then we closed his door as quietly as possible and I started downstairs to check on Brooklyn. As soon as we closed Hudson's door, we could hear it rattling like there was a very strong draft running through the house, struggling to pass through the closed door and thus making it shake back and forth with a rattling sound. Only, there was no draft, no wind, and no window open. The quake was still moving the house, only not as bad now...it must have been some residual energy. Sensing it was most likely over, I went down to see Brooklyn, who sleeps on the 1st floor while Hudson, Leslie, and I are on the 3rd. When I stepped into the attached garage to get to Brooklyn's door, I was not sure what I would see around the corner. We have boxes and racks, and boxes on racks completely covering both long walls of the tandem garage. I was half waiting to find our garage almost impassible making me hop on piles of cardboard, metal, and junk to get to her door. Surprisingly, everything was fine! Nothing moved at all. It was baffling; I noticed the bowl of dog water that was full when I tucked her in now had only half left inside. The rest of the water was splashed all around the bowl. The splashing has an odd shape to it, most of the wet concrete below the bowl was on the North and South side, in a rectangular shape around the bowl. It wasn't at all circular like I might have expected. When I opened Brooklyn's door, the dogs were already at attention and barked loudly. Murphy has jumped up on BK's bed and Rufus was cowering in a corner, opposite of where they usually sleep. I was relieved to see nothing disturbed, including Brooklyn. She had managed to sleep through not only the earthquake, but the dogs barking too! When I saw she was still asleep and nothing had shifted, I went back upstairs to see what would pop up on the USGS site