Well, that was effed up

[beanside]

With all due respect to my California peeps...Aaaaaaaah! *kermitflail*

Baltimore has hurricaines, tornadoes. It does not bounce. My office building (in which I am on the top floor) was not meant to minimize the effects. That's all I'm saying.

*deep breath* Anyhow. Safe & sound, just bounced a bit.

Comments

[embroiderama]

*hugs* I imagine it was very scary in the tall office buildings around here--so glad I was in my squat little concrete box that just shook and shook.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that was bad enough! I swear, it was a good two hours before my legs stopped shaking enough that it felt like the tremors had stopped!

Also, had you seen this?

[embroiderama]

Eeee, GIF! Did you see the video? I loved the bits of Jeff's voice that we got to hear. *slut for JDM's voice*

But yeah, the earthquake freaked me out, and I was unfocused the whole rest of the afternoon. We were 30 miles or so from the epicenter, yikes.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

NO! I couldn't find it to save my life. Any thoughts on where it would be?

[embroiderama]

I cant find the link, but I'm asking the person who I think linked me to it.

ETA: It was taken down. :(

[justsonya.livejournal.com]

It freaked me right the hell out.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

*hug* It's just not supposed to happen here. But as long as everyone's okay, it's just one more neuroses for the pile. *grin*

[sororcula.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're safe! As a native Californian, I have to admit that I've been a LITTLE bit amused at all the uproar over this, but I definitely get how an earthquake could be scary to people who aren't used to them/in a region that doesn't usually have them. And 5.9 magnitude is nothing to scoff at!

[embroiderama]

Just randomly jumping in--most people who like me have grown up and always lived on the east coast have never felt anything more than a tiny, tiny tremble. This was completely out of our frame of reference, even if it's small in the wider scope of things. :)

[sororcula.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, like I said, I totally get that! Honestly, even smaller earthquakes here sometimes freak me out a little bit, and I'm sure that if I were suddenly faced with a tornado or a hurricane I would be terrified. And I was being serious when I said a 5.9 is nothing to scoff at, that's a significant quake. I'm glad that you guys are alright!

That said, seeing things like "#earthquakeageddon" on Twitter makes me laugh a little. :-)

(P.S. I loooove that picture that your icon is from. ♥)

[embroiderama]

#earthquakeageddon--hee! Yeah, that's taking it a little far.

And thanks, I've kept this as my default icon for ages (years?) because I just love it.

[linderhill.livejournal.com]

I was at work in downtown DC and I thought it was something from the construction site across the street from my agency. Freaky! My challenge coins fell down and a couple of boxes fell. a few years ago I lived about 35 miles from there. Of course being the DC area, mass panic was everywhere and Metro was a mess. Took me 3 hours to get home when they closed us down.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

*nod* Yeah, I have friends who work down there, and they had a bitch of a time getting home. *nod*

The funniest part was that Jess was driving home, and got my text saying "I'm okay, you okay?" and was like 'whaaa?' She didn't feel a thing. I'm envious.

[linderhill.livejournal.com]

My mother up in PA didn't feel anything either while she was driving. On the other hand, my sister and nephew in NJ did. My sister that lives near my mom in PA felt it too. The consensus is that anyone driving "missed" out on the thrill.

Glad you guys are okay!

[earthkat.livejournal.com]

*hugs* 5.8 is a fairly good quake ESPECIALLY in a building that is meant to sway. Glad all is well.

[beanside.livejournal.com]

*nod* It felt like it lasted an eternity. And then, I had to go down four flights of stairs. Which sucked. I read your account! Poor Dan and Kainy!

[katzb101.livejournal.com]

Eeek... glad you're okay *hugs*

[beanside.livejournal.com]

Yup. All's well. Jess didn't even know we had one. The cats didn't bother interrupting their nap.

[hederahelix.livejournal.com]

While a 5.8 doesn't freak me out too much if I'm in California when it happens (5.8 earns a pause and a recheck of my emergency preparedness kit), a 4.0 would scare the daylights out of me if I were in an east coast city at the time.

Heck, I don't even need to be in an earthquake in the east for the thought of one to scare me. Your cities are NOT built for that shit.

I wander around, say, downtown Boston and look at all those suspended covered walkways between buildings and all those brick buildings and my California brain screams "Run away. Run away now."

I have to remind myself that the chances of an earthquake hitting there are far lower than one hitting where I live. (and we will not speak of the buildings I regularly work in that have been known to be super seismically unsound for more than 20 years that my workplace still hasn't retrofitted. la la la la la la.)

So I'm not going to mock the people on the east coast. The media coverage, on the other hand, is entirely worthy of epic mockage.

And given that we've endured decades of getting grief for being crazy enough to live in Natural Disaster Country every time we get a baby one, if west coasters are mocking the east coast, it's resentment about how we've been treated in terms of how we get covered.

In all seriousness, the thing that disturbs me most is that cities like New York are clearly still not where they should be in terms of disaster preparedness--nearly 10 years after 9/11. We got lots of reports of people evacuating buildings, but once they got outside, they didn't know what else to do.

That's a problem.

Glad you and yours are all okay. Hopefully this'll be the last installment of Bouncing Baltimore for 100 or 200 more years.