Did you feel the earthquake Friday morning?
We were sitting in our recliner in our home when the whole house started shaking and the chair started moving rapidly back and forth. We live on the coast, so at first we thought it might be a change of direction or increase in the velocity of the wind, which can cause our house to creak and the windows to rattle a bit.
But we saw no change in the ripples on the water, so we then thought that perhaps a big truck was on the roadway. But there was no truck. Those two thoughts came in rapid succession within about five seconds, so as the shaking of our chair continued, our next, panicked thought was, “It’s an earthquake!”
Five seconds later — about 10 seconds in total — the shaking and rattling stopped.
We immediately looked out our windows to see if the water was receding from the shoreline, thinking that if it were an off-shore quake, under the ocean, there might be a tsunami. (Of course, there wasn’t.)
We then went on the internet to search for “Boston earthquake,” and there were a bunch of posts on X and other social media confirming that there had indeed been an earthquake.
The earthquake’s center was in New Jersey, where the seismographic recording was a 4.8. The effect in our area was considerably less.
Although there was no damage reported from the quake (even at its epicenter in New Jersey), we have to admit we were shaken to our core. Our otherwise calm Friday morning had been upended by the most random event we could have imagined — an earthquake. It made us realize how fragile our existence is and how at a moment’s notice, our world can be upended.
It also made us empathize with those who are the victims of a major earthquake and for a few seconds, we understood the sheer terror that one feels amidst an event such as that.
We realize that some might say, “It is what it is,” but we have a better one: “Everything is good….until it isn’t.”