2008-04-18

Rock and Roll... that old familiar feeling

Well, some residents of the Midwest are talking today.

Evidently overnight, there was a 5.4 Earthquake (or 5.2) on the border between the states of Illinois and Indiana.

Now, the Perry household resides in Missouri (over 130 miles away) but, we felt it. Near 20 to 5:00 this morning, both myself and my husband woke up. He didn't realize what woke him and fell back asleep.
But, past Californian that I am, I recognized the feel and sat up to see how long it would last and see how strong it was. It probably lasted half a minute. It was strong enough to shake the bed, but, not hard enough to knock anything over. After getting up to check on Mini-Mike, I went back to bed.

I do have to call my Mom over in Illinois later... she's got quite a collection of glass, metal and porcelain bells, so I'm sure the ringing noise was enough to wake my parents up.

There was a big to-do here when I was about ten years old, maybe a mild tremor with some guy predicting 'the big one' for the New Madrid fault. But, nothing came of it (except the wasted effort of packing away all of my Mother's bells).

The really memorable one for most people was the year prior, in 1989 I remember only that we were at DisneyLand and had to leave early because it was shut for inspections after a sizable quake. My Grandparents were fully woken, but, said that my Dad, my Sister and I slept right through it (so, sue me... a kid is pretty tired after a day at Disney!). Although what most folks talk about was a canceled baseball game, and the horrifying freeway collapses.

As for today's results... I haven't seen or heard of much damage around here (but, there is some elsewhere) but for a rickety old bridge on Kingshighway Blvd. It's been partially shut down until it can be further assessed (personally, I think the whole bridge should have been shut down long ago... I like to compare the appearance of it to a half eaten Windmill Cookie but, I'm not a bridge inspector, so, what do I know?).
This wasn't directly in our route on the way in, but, we did pass by it. I heard that it was shut down totally, but, now the center two lanes are open to traffic. That is a major artery for the South part of St. Louis city, so I can't imagine what a total shutdown would do to our roads (and tempers).

So, here's hoping everyone came through the excitement unscathed. And, here's to me being cautious and adding earthquake coverage to my home insurance policy last summer.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

ROCK N ROLL SIDDER!
Doesn't sound like there was a lot of damage overall even at ground zero.
So I guess we can expect a rush on maternity beds in the hospitals in nine months LOL

Unknown said...

What an interesting way to start the morning. And it's good to hear that Mike had things under control! I lived in Northwest Indiana most of my life, and I can remember two times when we had quakes there. I didn't feel either of them. I mostly went through tornadoes. Now that I live in Florida, I have tornadoes, water spouts, and hurricanes. Oh, in Indiana we also had snow storms.

Mistress of the Dorkness said...

AFTERSHOCK!

the bad thing about this... is that I've read the structural report on this building... and it ain't good.
;)

Mistress of the Dorkness said...

I hope you guys are enjoying my live reports.

The good news is that my building is still standing. ;-)

This shaking lasted about 20 seconds, I think, just slightly shorter than this morning. But, it felt milder.

Now, some places didn't feel the shaking for as long as I did, but, I've been reading and it's apparently because of the silty, wobbly composition of the soil here in St. Louis by the Mississippi River, and near my home by the Meremec River.

The shaking is much less amplified in places that have solid bedrock nearer to the surface so they wouldn't feel this as strong or as long.

Lucky us. ;)

Anyway, Brian, too bad you weren't in Indiana today, I'm sure you would have felt something. But, for sure, you and Diane can both keep your hurricanes down there in Florida. ;)