A 4.2!
Friday, July 20th, 2007
Just felt an earthquake, which, by my standards, was massive. I was in the middle of a bizarre dream, lamenting some obscure committee decision that hadn’t gone my way, when I was ripped from the slumbers with an alarming jolt followed by a rolling side-to-side shaking. I leapt out of bed as the floor continued to quiver, and made a move to get under the bed. It was at this point that I realized in mild panic there is no room under which to get. Now the quake was still going on, mind you, as I racked my brain for plan B. Unfortunately no plan B before the event subsided… note to self: come up with Earthquake plan (Venezia has no “under the bed” either)…
I made a point to estimate the duration of the shaking, and guessed the initial shake lasted 4 to 5 seconds. After it was over, there was this residual swaying, which I imagine was the building settling back into place, rather than the earth still moving, but I’m not sure. The sound of the quake was strange… it was a muffled cadence, kind of like a train moving along the tracks without the clacking part. Let me tell you, there is no better alarm clock than an earthquake. Side note- weird, as the girls are out of town now, and when we had one of the the last earthquakes here I was out of town!
There has been continued coverage on the local news with citizen reactions, including accounts of pictures falling off shelves, dogs barking, and more. Others described a sharp jolt, vertical shaking, a 10 second temblor, and that it was felt across the Bay. Initial stats indicate it was a shallow quake, 4.2 on the scale, occurring at 4:42 am, centered 2 miles ENE of oakland, within the city limits of Oakland. For reference, we’re about 3 miles north of Oakland. Here’s a google map of our house marked near the epicenter.
Well, last year I decided that it was time to move on to another challenge in life, and thought that business school would be a good way to delay the actual decision. That’s why we’re in Berkeley–I’m in my first year at the UC-Berkeley MBA program. Things are going swell, although a little busines than I thought… oh well, Medora and Venezia love it in the Bay Area, as you can see from some of the posts in the archives of this blog.
