A Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On

Early this morning I was sitting in my love seat, grading school papers when I felt a sensation of rocking back and forth, only sideways. It was as if I were in a vehicle traveling down a dirt road and was being rocked around. The sound was very loud as if it were sustained thunder. Then the house began popping and cracking. Immediately I thought it was a tornado that hit suddenly and without warning. But as it continued and a few items fell from the wall, it occurred to me that this was an earthquake. The big shake up lasted about 10 to 15 seconds. When I thought it was over, I went into the bedroom to tell my husband what had happened. He had awakened, thinking I was doing something noisy. When I returned to my seat I noticed that the metal handle on my china cabinet was still rattling. This continued for at least a minute. (I heard on the news that the quake continued for 15 minutes.) I was not afraid. I was excited to finally have experienced what a quake felt like. I had been traveling in a vehicle the other two times and felt nothing. The quake registered 5.2 on the Richter Scale, pretty big for Indiana. One of the aftershocks registered 4.4. Because one of my students was pretty terrified by the whole experience, we didn't talk about it at school today. Perhaps another day we will share our experiences and compare just how much we felt on this day. The irony is that on this day in 1906 a quake hit California (I think).