My First Major-Earthquake Experience

When an earthquake rattled the area of the US where my family and I reside, I was not frightened or did I panic. I couldn't wait to tell the world where I was when the rumbling started. Here is my story:


A few days earlier, I had written about my love for the East Coast and how the West Coast, especially Texas(Houston), almost fried me up from the 100 plus-degree temperature when I went to visit my sisters and brothers and their families.I wrote how my flight from Houston was delayed by four hours and how I wished I had The Journey, a book by Kou Weanquoi-Rac, to keep my company during the ordeal.

Tuesday, August 23, was like any other day, except that I slept a little bit longer that morning. I hate looking at the clock in the morning and I hate the noise of the alarm. I have one of those short wave radios that is supposed to wake me up at 7:30 AM with news or the Early Edition on NPR.

I-270 was not crowded; schools were still closed in Montgomery County, where I live. I reached work on time.

I usually don't go out for lunch, but around 1:35 PM on this afternoon, I left the office for the Atlanta Bread Shop to pick up a bowl or a cup of basil-tomato soup. Instead of getting me a half turkey sandwich, I went for the soup, since the needle on the scale in my sister's bathroom seems not to know where to stop when I reluctantly tried to stand on it. It's hard to lose weight, especially after taking a long trip to see family members.

I arrived at the Atlanta Bread Shop at about 1:48 PM. Some customers were eating; others had had their lunch and were just sitting, chit chatting. I and the rest of the customers were on line waiting to put in our orders. As I turned to take a sample of the bread placed in a plate on the counter, the floor of the shop began to shake. The building itself began to shake. All of us in the shop began to look at each other. Those who had finished eating took their jackets and other belongings and began to leave the building.The rumbling was not for long; 5-10 seconds was the most, I think. it was about 1:55 PM.

I was sleeping one morning in July of 2010 when our house began to shake. That was my first experience of an earthquake. The Richter Scale read 4.2 or 4.5 that day. My son who slept next door had no idea of what had happened.

I did not panic. In fact, one of the receptionists at the shop said that she was wishing and waiting for the big one! The rock on which the East Coast stands has no cracks or crevices to absorb the vibration of the movement of our part of our section of the earth.

I bought my soup and left the building. A lady who who was entering asked me whether I had felt the tremor? "What on earth is the world coming to?" She asked me. "That is scary," I replied.

I wanted to send a quick message to Facebook or an email to my children. I realized then that I had forgotten my phone at the office. I remembered forgetting the phone at home on Monday. Had something big happened and if my office had been affected, my family would be calling and inquiring about my whereabouts. I had no phone, I would have been buried under the rubble of an Atlanta Bread Shop.

As I drove to the gas station right across from the Bread Shop, I began to wonder what if the gas pipes underground had experienced a rupture during the movement of the earth. I was also curious about what was happening at work.

As I drove up to the traffic light near my work place, I saw a few police cars and nearly everyone in our three-storey building standing outside, getting ready to leave for the day. I parked my car, ran to the main door and begged to go inside to get my phone and other stuff. "Hurry up and get down here quickly", said our Legal Council, who was taking a headcount of the employees.

We were all asked to go home for the day. The office building was to be closed until things settled down and a structural evaluation completed. It was on my way home that I heard from the radio that indeed we had just experienced a 5.8 earthquake and that the last time the East had felt anything like this was in 1944.

Oh yeah, it was 1944 that William VS Tubman became President of Liberia!

8/24/11