Wednesday, January 07, 2015

I Feel the Earth Move

We've had a rather earthshaking time of it lately -- literally. There have been at least 10 earthquakes in the past 24 hours in my city. All of them have been relatively minor -- people in California are sneering -- but as the Texans responded, how would they deal with that many tornadoes, even minor ones? If you've had maybe one tornado in the past 50 years, then have 15 in two months, and then 10 in one day, it's rather shocking, even if they're EF-1s.

I definitely noticed the first one, a 3.5, yesterday afternoon. My whole house shook, things rattled, and it was loud. Then there was a 3.6 just before 7, and that one felt and sounded like a truck hit my house. There were two more in the upper 2s that I didn't notice -- I was driving to ballet class at the time -- and then two more around 10 that I also didn't notice. There was apparently a 3.1 around 1 a.m. that I guess I slept through. I heard something for the small one around 8:30, but didn't peg it as an earthquake, and then we had another that felt like a ripple about an hour ago, but I haven't seen any reports on that one (but a friend in the area felt the same thing at the same time). I definitely notice them more when I'm sitting at my desk upstairs.

Today, though, it's so windy that I have to pause and wonder if any shaking is yet another earthquake or just a really good gust of wind.

And now I need to use minor earthquakes in a book. I have a sensation to describe when the earth trembles (probably from a spell, or maybe from a dragon waking).

I got through the copyedited manuscript yesterday, with all the corrections entered. Today I'll start going through the whole thing again for one final proofread. It'll be a short workday, though, because children's choir starts again this evening, and I have a few errands to run on the way there. The weather's supposed to get really rather nasty for the next few days, so I'm looking forward to holing up inside and digging into the work. And maybe bracing myself for more shaking.

No comments: