April 18, 2008

An earthquake woke us up this morning. Or, I should say it woke Michael up who woke me up. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night and had finally just gotten into a good sleep sometime after 3:00 a.m. Then, at about 4:37 in the morning Michael bolts upright in bed and shouts, "What the hell was that?"

At that point I realize the bed had been shaking and hear the mirror and television rattling on the wall. I was too annoyed at been woken up to even care that it was an earthquake, but Michael seemed to know what it was. I think it scared the dog some, too.

When I turned on the television at 5:00 am it was all over the news. It was centered in West Salem, IL. That is about 127 miles from St. Louis. It was a 5.4. Supposedly it was felt as far away as Chicago and Iowa. Most people around here felt it. Some say they were scared, but I don't know how you can be scared when something only lasts about 15 seconds. Some people say they heard a popping noise, too. I heard a weird noise, but it wasn't popping and I'm not sure how to describe it. It was sort of a rumbling, but also had the quality of an airplane that is very close.

We had a cover of one of the lights on our entertainment center break. A couple pictures were knocked over and a magnet had fallen off the fridge. I guess it did shake things pretty good.

Then, today during late morning there was another one at about 10:15 this morning. I thought I had felt something while I was sitting in my classroom and thought I heard a noise, too. But, in a building that has concrete walls, it's hard to tell. I did look at my cellphone thinking maybe it was vibrating because I heard that noise again, but it hadn't vibrated.

It was a long day at work as I only had 4 more parents show up. So, I had a total of 8 parents out of 23 come to parent teacher conferences. That's just so sad.