The Ground Be Shakin...

So here you go, this is my first hand account of surviving this morning's GREATER LOS ANGELES EARTQUAKE.

DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUH!

Today's events have given me the opportunity to learn something: Google Maps doesn't give you a convenient way to determine "As the Crow Flies" distances. So because I'm just too lazy to put more time into it, I will estimate that my home is only 10 to 12 miles away from the earthquake epicenter, "As the crow flies."

We live on an Island of Granite. When it comes to drilling trenches for cinder block walls or sprinkler systems, or holes for swimming pools, this is a great inconvenience. When it comes to earthquakes, it's very handy. Just about every earthquake which I've felt at home has been a similar experience:

First we hear the rumbling. This is the absolute worst part because it builds the anticipation and anxiety. I hear it coming. I can't stop it. I know what's coming. But I don't know how hard it will be. 

This time, the rumbling was LOUD. VERY LOUD. I was sitting in the office at my laptop after spending the morning running errands. CS was sitting on the toilet pooping (you're welcome.) MG and SBS were at school and DaddyDoc at work. I could tell from the loudness of the rumble that this earthquake would be larger than usual. The anxiety built.

Then we feel the shaking.

The shaking was actually rather quick and blunt. The house shook and I was distracted - The package of golf tees which DD bought in Dublin at the Guinness Storehouse. Then I heard something fall in the entryway. But the shaking was rather short. I was a bit surprised when it was over.

Then I get the post-quake anxiety. Was it a foreshock? What's coming around the corner? In this case, I was summoned to the bathroom where someone wanted help wiping his tushie. (Read the URL, people, "PerkyMOMMY" - this is why I make the BIG bucks.) When I got to the bathroom, CS told me that the house "Shaked." I said "Yep, and it's all over now!" Summoning my calm self from the deep nether regions.

I didn't even imagine the impact to the GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA right away. I got on Instant Messenger and dear wonderful Andrwe got me some links PDQ which actually helped calm me. It WAS close and if it was close, then I felt it as about strongly as I could and it wasn't that bad. It took me three busy signals before I got DD's voicemail at work, just in case he'd HEARD about the quake. (Yes, I'm a little dim. It didn't quite register that he would have a clue that there'd been a quake.)

As I Twittered, I realized "Uh, oh, people are going to be worried about us" and who did I think of first? GrandmaWorryWart. I mean, GrandmaChurchLady. The local news was advising people that phones were busy and that e-mail was more reliable. But GCL doesn't sit on her computer checking e-mail so I didn't trust it. After 3-4 tries, her phone rang. She seemed to anticipate who was calling when she answered the phone. Then she said "I was going to turn on my e-mail because the news says don't use the phones!!" 

How was I supposed to know she would turn her computer on? 

But she was glad to know we were all good and she laughed at CS's story. Her cat hasn't been willing to come into her house all day. She suspects that the cat knew what was coming.

DD called and we talked about the reactions at his office. Remember, he works in buildings full of labb-OR-atories. (You have to say it funny. You also have to say "al-u-min-EE-um" because it's very funny.) He said that he felt the people around him were over-reacting. He went to the cafeteria and was very happy because it was empty. No line for sandwiches today!

Which all leads me to realizing; Oh, waitaminute. I tend to under-react in situations like this. At first, I didn't call the boys' school or rush up there because I assumed that everyone in the attendance zone was doing the exact same thing and they didn't need ME adding to it. But then I wondered: What if I'm SUPPOSED to be there? I'm assuming that school's just going to proceed as normal. What if they're sending kids home and my kids are the two stuck out in the middle of the field wondering why their mother doesn't love them enough to rescue them from heat and anxiety of the Earthquake Drill In Real Life!

Well of course the line was busy so I just put the phone down for a bit. 

About 10 minutes later, I picked it up again and the principal's secretary answered.  Now, you should know that these are the people that all parents should kiss up to at their children's schools: The teachers, the principals, the office staff, the cafeteria ladies, the janitors. Seriously. I promise you that I have kissed up to each and every one of these people and at various times in my children's school careers already, it has paid off. But that's another post. (Oh, how Alton Brown of me.)

You will have to believe that it is not arrogant of me to say that my phone call was a happy sorbet in this woman's post-earthquake day. She answered the phone and I said "Hi, L! It's Perky Mommy, how's it going?" And I just heard L smile and laugh. The first thing she said to me was to thank me for not rushing the office immediately after it happened and for waiting so long to call. Then she said "HERE! Let me do my schpeil for you." (How do you spell schpiel?) 

It was hysterical. "You're going to ask me what happened to the kids and I'm going to say... and then you're going to ask me if YOUR CHILD is injured and I'm going to say..."

What I learned is that they did a drop and cover. Then they evacuated to the field. The administration spent 20 minutes sweeping the school for potential damage. Having found nothing of concern, the students returned to their classes after 20 minutes. Everything is proceeding as normal. No students have been sent to the office with injuries and had they been, parents would have been called.

Then she turned off "Principal's Secretary" and turned on my office buddy. She said that if the we'd needed to come get our kids, they would've tried to use the "Phone Broadcast System" which is an automatic system in which she calls, makes a message, and a computer automatically calls every parent and delivers the message. Who knows how long that would take, though, if you ask me.

She said that 70 parents came, 2 children went home. The PTA president was on campus and came in the office to help with the phones. I told her that the only reason I did consider coming, which is totally true, was to help manage the office. She said "ACTUALLY, I would've appreciated THAT." As we hung up I told her, if you EVER need me to come help out in the office, PLEASE PLEASE call me. She said "You know, I will remember that and I will USE that." I told her that she better!

They did not send parents to classrooms. They called students to the office so that if the parents got hysterical, at least the whole class wouldn't have to see it.

Have you ever been at a museum with an earthquake simulator? Every 20 minutes or so, you can HEAR a loud rumbling and if you look at the corner, you know where the sound is coming from, but the only people who really feel it are the people on or closest to the platform. This is my current existence. I just HEARD another aftershock. The sound isn't quite as loud as the initial quake. (There goes another, quieter one.) And we never feel any shaking. It sounds like a loud truck but it's obvious that there's no truck in the neighborhood. And I hate this part. The sound surprises me and even starts my anxiety a bit and then there's no shake. It's very anti-climatic and actually annoying. 

School gets out in 45 minutes.