Just happened; nothing broke, and the power's still on, but it seemed to go on for a minute or so. It was one of those rolling types. Afterward, I suggested it had been five-something, but A the H insisted it was six-something.

'Course there's no way of knowing until we find out where the epicenter was, and how things were there. (UPDATE: Chino Hills.)

More later.

UPDATE: 5.8.

It's so funny, because the house in La Canada was always shaking—whenever a big truck drove by there'd be a bit of a shiver, since the place was built on stilts (well, I-beams and cables—it was eccentrically engineered, built more like a bridge than a house).

So for a split second there was this "is this . . .?" But of course it was: it wasn't just the shaking, but with a quake there's always this noise. The big ones set off car alarms, but this time it was only my martini glasses tinkling against my Waterford crystal. I remember vaguely hoping that if something had to break, it'd be a martini glass (or a cheap wine glass) instead of the Waterford. But nothing actually broke here. After a moment I got up, just in case it wanted to get worse—I'm from the generation that likes to get into a doorframe, or under a sturdy table, if things get intense, like they did in 1994—at least, I like to look around and make sure I'm not close to any windows or mirrors. The shaking still wasn't too vigorous, and I could tell it was that rolling type of earthquake, rather than the sudden violent spikey more-destructive kind, so I didn't imagine it was going to get bad.

But I wandered into the hallway; my husband had come out of the den, and we just sort of looked at each other for a moment.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, fine," I answered, but as I said it I mentally calculated how long it would take us to get to the two bathroom doorways if the shaking got more intense (it's usually best to have one person in each doorway, to be able to watch for the closing of any doors, though two in a doorway isn't horrible; it's about protecting one's head in case there's some sort of structural collapse or falling plaster).

And then, of course, it was over in another moment, just as I'd suspected it would be. And we made our best guesses about where it had placed on the Richter scale—naturally, I was right, because that's the sort of thing I'm right about.

Now let's all locate our flashlights and our candles and our lanterns and our backup canned foods, shall we? And buy a few extra gallons of water to keep around the house, mmkay?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:48 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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