All shook up...

Friends and Family: I finally have some time to sit down and share my experience from Friday, November 30th. This will be a slightly longer post that usual, but hey, who doesn't love details when something crazy happens?!

8:30am on Friday, I'm sitting at my computer running spreadsheets and paying bills. The house gives a little shudder. "No big deal," I think to myself. Happens every so often. The small shudders continue for another second or two, and I'm thinking, "Cool, a little bigger than I'm used to." We have these little shakers often enough it's just this side of normal.

A split second later, the power goes out and the house sounds like it's coming down around me. No warning. No slow build up of shaking. Instant chaos. Glass is falling and breaking, pictures are dropping off the walls, windows are flexing and creaking. "The world is ending!" shouts my brain, who can not even comprehend what is happening (a 7.0 earthquake, largest here since 1964). I am unable put in to words the fear and panic that I felt - all in the span of half a second.

The closest sound and feeling I can compare this adventure to is a thunderstorm in the midwest (the kind where the house rattles because the thunder is so intense), while a freight train is driving through your backyard, and your house has turned in to the moving sidewalk they have in a carnival's House of Fun. All happening while you can't see, you're on adrenaline overdrive, and your body has gone in to flight mode.

I immediately jump up and run down stairs. My gut reaction is to get OUTSIDE and away from the house, which is surely going to collapse under this strain. For those of you that know our house, we have a hand-made wooden spiral staircase from the loft to the first floor. Guess what I had to run down DURING AN EARTHQUAKE, while the power was out?

During my mad dash through the living room towards the deck (house still shuddering and shaking), I'm listening to breaking glass, rattling cabinet doors, watching my windows and walls flex and shudder under the strain, and desperately trying to find my dogs.

We all get out to the deck, and stand there as the tremors continue for another 5-7 seconds. Every single thing I've described happened in 30 seconds. 30 seconds for my entire world to come unglued and a few years to come off my life. Take a minute to time 30 seconds on your phone - see how long it really is...

As soon as the world stops convulsing, I dash inside and back upstairs to grab my phone. I have to check on Mike who was at his store working. "Is he okay, did the building come down, was it as bad there, AM I IMAGINING THINGS?!" I thought to myself. The next call I make is to my mom. God bless my mother who is the most calm and collected person I've ever known. No matter what I've thrown at her, she takes it in and then figures out how to help me. I broke down and cried like a baby. And in the process, I forgot the one solid rule about earthquakes - there's always an aftershock. I step back in the house, finally calmer, and a 5.8 shock hits. There go a few more years off my life...

Needless to say, we finally all got back inside and calmed down. Then something interesting happened. My first reaction wasn't to assess damage around me. It was to start calling my neighbors to make sure they were okay, did I need to check on their houses, did they want to group up at my house since there was no power? The generosity of people never ceases to amaze me, and Alaskans in particular are a fine example of this. No one I talked to cared about themselves immediately following - their concern was for their friends, family, and community. "Are you okay," "What can I do to help you," "Do you need anything," "How are you handling things," where the most common threads of conversation I heard the day of and the days following. Those years I lost off my life during the quake? Added right back on from the sense of pride in the community I belong to, knowing we can handle anything that hits.