Experiments in getting to the point.
April 18, 2008 at 4:45 am
· Filed under Miscellanea, Personal
I just leaped out of a shaking bed. No killer was in the room. I checked.
Apparently, I experienced my first earthquake.
6:02 AM Update: It was 5.4 on Richter scale.
6:12 AM Update: Epicenter was over a major fault line near West Salem, IL, 130 miles west of Louisville.
6:33 AM Update: The newsroom is perseverating about the “first reported damage,” some broken ornamental concrete in downtown Louisville.
6:40 AM Update: This is fun. I should be a meteorologist or something. But to get a job, I think I’d need to get better at mongering fear.
6:55 AM Update: Here’s the area that felt tremors as best as I can figure:
7:31 AM Update: OK, all good things must come to an end. I have to go do real work now.
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Holy Moly! I didn’t know there could be earthquakes in KY. Thanks for the up-to-the-minute reporting, though. I imagine you doing it in a Kermit the Frig voice.
“Hi ho, Abraham Piper here…”
[...] twentytwowords.com [...]
Josh S wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 6:26 am
Jeff and I woke up too. The whole place was shaking.
Jeff looked online but nothing was reported yet — how silly of us not to of checked your blog, where of course it would be reported first.
I live south of Louisville and a little before 5:30 this morning, my cat woke me up by literally CHEWING on my hand.
The next thing it felt like a big ole semi had driven within a couple of feet of my bedroom.
So we had an earthquake. Apparently we are sitting on top of the New Madrid fault line.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030515075354.htm
Yikes. And we don’t even have California weather.
Chelsea wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 7:03 am
We live in Illinois about an hour from Salem. My husband woke me and held on tight when everything began shaking.
For those who didn’t know about earthquakes in KY- it sits in the New Madrid fault zone which includes IL, TN, MO, AR, and IN. This area experiences about 200 earthquakes a year, but we don’t feel most of them.
Update: They’re saying it wasn’t on the New Madrid fault.
Apparently, it was a shallow earthquake; that’s why it was felt so strongly by so many people.
Welcome to Louisville!
Scott G wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 7:11 am
I’m not from the tradition that follows the church calender, but it is getting close to Pentecost, isn’t it? And with all that T4G stuff going on there…
Courtney wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 7:23 am
I felt it, too. But I didn’t actually wake up fully. I was sort of awake and sort of asleep so I just thought it was a dream. It’s just so weird that we had an earthquake in the middle of the country.
danielle wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 7:24 am
METEOROLOGIST?! Dave is going to have a field day with this one. I apologize in advance.
Yeah, we don’t get this kind of thing much in Louisville. Weird but exciting. Glad no one got hurt (apparently).
On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
Bert wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 8:06 am
I must be strange or something. I was busy at work (night shift) in Louisville - awake - and felt nothing! Missed the fun.
[...] Rocking and Rolling. [...]
Crrie wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 8:57 am
You responded like Gary and I did when we had our first one in Califrnia - however this was not the first one I had experienced. My first was when I was an exchange student in Japan at 14! My host mother woke me up - or else I think I would have slept through the whole thing. That was before children!! Some of the ones we experienced in California, you could actually see the ground rolling under your feet - sort of like a ship on a wave only this was the ground that is supposed to be secure under your feet. Interesting experience.
Danielle, did I use the wrong word? Did I mean “geologist”?
This morning I remember (barely) my wife saying to me, “It feels like everything’s shaking”.
Now it makes sense.
Also, it was good to meet you at BoB.
jenna wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 9:19 am
no silly, it’s “earthquakologist”. sheesh.
You should extend your map of those who felt it a little further west. My parents (granted they live in a community of drunken rednecks) said they along with others felt it. They live about 120 miles NW of St. Louis. It should at least extend beyond Quincy, IL.
Lance wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 9:40 am
What has shaken me to the core is words in excess of 22.
Yet I know that things like this happen, all bets are off.
I can only wonder what the Son’s return will do to us.
WHOA!!! An earthquake?? When I think of Louisville, earthquakes never really come to mind. Didn’t know they could happen there. Guess you learn something new each day. Glad you guys are okay.
~ Joshua wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 10:17 am
22 WORDS: I awoke to the shaking and feared… then remembered our Lord’s promise to return, and was then relieved, saying “Come Lord Jesus!”
Abraham,
Here is something amazing. I received and email from a co-worker who works remotely in Overland Park, KS. He and his wife were awakened by this same earthquake this morning. But none of us here in Omaha felt it. The fault line must run south for several hundred miles. Just when you thought you are safe from those kinds of natural occurances. Now we have to watch for tornados and earthquakes.
Abraham,
Disappointed that you didn’t report and update in the usual “22″ style—–must have been a side effect of the earthquake, eh? 
Minnesota is so boring! Where’s our earthquake?!
carissa wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 1:26 pm
and i thought i’d be escaping earthquakes by moving from LA to chicago. i guess that isn’t necessarily true.
Stephen wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 1:51 pm
My parents felt it in Fort Wayne.
Birth pains…
It came again around 11:30 this morning as well - 4.6 I think on the richter scale.
The news people are treating this thing like the city of Louisville is collapsing. This kind of reporting reminds me what meteorologists do in Alabama with the slightest possibility of snow accumulation. The whole world shuts down.
Jake wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 6:30 pm
My dad slept through the whole thing. Now I know why I’m such a sound sleeper :D.
Michelle wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 7:07 pm
The word is seismologist. LOL When I lived in CA, I felt my first one in 97. It was different since I lived in KY my whole life. Everything shook for a fedw minutes, but then everybody acted like this was a normal thing. So I felt kind of silly being scared then. Now that it happened in Louisville where my family has never felt one, I know how my neighbors in Ca felt. It is just an everyday occurance, and nothing to be scared about. I find it odd though that no one here knew we lived on a Fault line. How ignoratn can our community be about these things?
Liz wrote @ April 18, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Dan felt it in Peoria - fortunately he was NOT on his motorcycle at the time.
The only thing that woke me up (in Westfield, IN, north of Indy) was the sound of things rattling. My wife, on the other hand, asked me “are you OK?” She thought I was the one shaking the bed, having convulsions or something. It wasn’t til I read the morning news that we figured out what had actually happened.
benhoak wrote @ April 21, 2008 at 9:38 am
It’s now Monday morning in Kentucky (and other places) and we had another aftershock about 12:30 a.m. We got out of high school once for a couple of days (this was 15 years ago) b/c someone predicted were we going to have “the big one.” Still hasn’t happened.
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