August 23, 2011

DON'T PANIC WHEN THE WALLS BEGIN TO SWAY AND SHAKE!!!

My title for today's blog probably sounds really silly to most of you reading this; however, my family experienced our first ever earthquake today which occurred on the East Coast of the United States. It happened while I was sitting at my computer updating my Inspirational Sayings and Blessings page on Facebook. I heard this big, loud rumble which I first thought was a mac truck going down the road in front of my house, but then my computer started to sway back and forth in front of me. At first I thought my equilibrium was off because of the migraine headaches I have been having since last week. The thoughts running through my head was, "Wow! My headache is starting to make the room move back and forth." I slowly turned around in the chair, so that I was facing the center of my family room. As I was turning around, I watched my walls begin to sway up and down like an ocean wave. Now, I really was thinking that my migraine was causing me to hallucinate. Then all of a sudden, my son came running into the back room screaming, "What the heck just happened?" The realization hit me then! We were having an earthquake!!!

I am 38 years old, and I have lived on the East Coast my entire life, and I have NEVER experienced anything like this in my life! Once I realized what had happened, I wasn't quite sure what to do next. I kind of sat in front of my computer dumbfounded waiting to see if another wave would shake our house. Living on the East Coast I grew up knowing what to do in case of a tornado or a hurricane, but I was clueless what to do in the event of an earthquake. All I could think to tell my son was to get out of the house as quickly as possible if he felt another wave rumble through our area. 

As scary as the earthquake was, it made me realize not to panic if the walls started to shake and sway again. Since I was home alone with my son, I needed to be calm, so he would not get frightened. In the past week, I have learned that there are certain things in our lives that we have no control over, such as earthquakes. We just have to do our best to remain calm and do not panic in the heat of the moment.