6.5 earthquake
listening to:
mood:
2003-12-22 - 9:28 p.m.
and. a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit central california today. i work approximately 240 miles from its epicenter. no big deal right? unless, you share a fault line with said earthquake and are on the 20th floor of a 22 story building. at 11:17 this morning, suddenly, a coworker says, 'what the fuck is that?-- oh my, we are having an earthquake.' i didn't feel much at that second, but as soon as i did, i recognized the feeling, somewhat like being on a big boat, and swaying back and forth-- that was the first 5 seconds. then, a surge of adrenelin rushed through my body, heart racing, hands shaking, telling my other coworker, 'no, we are not going anywhere, we are riding it out here, its safest here.' my hands started to shake so much, and i could tell my face was flushed. it wasn't stopping....we were swaying a good 15 feet to either side.
you see, tall buildings like the one i work in situated in southern california are retrofitted and if newly built, such as mine, stand on rollers. rollers deep in the earth, where when the first quake happens, it sends the building swaying back and forth so that the impact can be carried rather than breaking. and we swayed, boy did we sway... for about 3 minutes, i watched the world outside move and shift, my coworkers worried faces of minimal panic and fear. and i laughed outloud to cope-- like most uncomfortable situations, and thought to myself, 'we could really go down.'
soon enough, the swaying stopped- though my mind kept thinking we were still slightly moving for about an hour, which in fact we were a bit (aftershocks).
best roller coaster ride to date.
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