Rockin and a Rollin'

I was abruptly awakened from a dead sleep on Wednesday the 18th to some loud crashes, creaks and groans and my bed shaking. What in the world was going on? My mind quickly raced through some possibilities. Wind storm? No...a quick glance out the window showed me that the tree branches were not whipping around. A flyover by the jets from nearby Hill Air Force Base? No...I couldn't hear the tell-tale sound of the loud engines. These are both things that as a resident of Davis County shake my house on the regular. I dismissed both options within seconds and came to the surprising but unmistakable conclusion: EARTHQUAKE! And interestingly, more than shaking, it felt like more of an intense rolling sensation. I sat there in a bit of a panic trying to figure out what to do. Should I run to Lilian or was it safer to stay put? Should I call out to her to see if she was okay? But what if she was somehow sleeping through it...I didn't want to alarm her. The earthquake seemed to go on forever but in all actuality lasted about 20 seconds. Oscar and I rode it out together on my bed and then raced to Lilian's room when the rockin' and rollin' settled down. She was sitting straight up in bed, eyes wide. "Was that...??" she asked, "An earthquake!!" I answered. And then suddenly the floor started rolling and her bedroom door started to sway... "It's happening again!" Lilian exclaimed. I assured her it was an aftershock which was normal, and that we'd likely continue to feel them throughout the day. I hurried down the hall to assess damage considering I had heard some pretty loud crashes during the initial quake and found Brandon standing on the stairs having been also jolted awake by the earth moving beneath him. "Earthquake?" "Yep, earthquake." 

I found my big canvas painting on the floor from where it had taken a dive from the fireplace mantle, a little dinged and dented but still okay. Not so okay were some vintage glass bottles that had been swept down with the painting. Also damaged was the framed picture of the Bountiful Temple that had taken its own dive from the downstairs fireplace mantle.





















Bryan had been driving to work when the earthquake hit. He was listening to the radio when he saw what looked like a huge bolt of lightning flash through the sky further south in Salt Lake City and then the radio went dead for a few seconds. He didn't notice the shaking, attributing it to just driving over some rough road. When the radio came back the DJ's were yelling, "Earthquake, earthquake!!!!" 

We spent the day responding to texts from family, and posts on social media as well as pouring over the news reports coming in throughout the day. We discovered the quake was classified as a 5.7 on the richter scale and was centered in Magna, Utah. Not huge, but still the largest we'd had here in Utah since the 1930's when there was a 6.6.  We still have friends living in our old neighborhood in Magna and it was interesting to hear of their experiences...the intensity of the shaking and the damage in their homes of course much more severe than our own 30 miles north.

(The Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake Temple lost his trumpet in the quake leading to a lot of funny memes...)

It was equal parts fascinating and unnerving to feel so many aftershocks throughout the day and week following the main quake...more than 200 altogether, though we only felt the ones that were at least a 3 on the richter scale. Oscar spent the day following me everywhere I went and cuddled up at my side when I stopped to sit at my computer or on the couch. Anytime the house started creaking his head would pop up and his eyes would get wide.

Wednesday the 18th was meant to be the first day of online distance learning for the kids after schools had closed Friday the 13th. We joked that maybe this was Mother Nature's way of giving the kids a little alarm clock jolt to get them moving so they wouldn't be tempted to sleep in even though they didn't have to catch the bus and check into their physical classrooms. It certainly did give a bit of a break from the non-stop Coronavirus news, at least here in Utah.