Yes I did! Today started off as a glorious day for me. I completed two weekly discussion posts for my class, and received an invitation to apply for a part-time position beginning in September. I packed a few boxes (all of our books) and had just sat down for a break. I heard a slight rattle and the cat jumped, meowed . . . then froze as stiff as a board. Within another couple of seconds the entire building began to shake. Not just any old shake, but really strong moving and rattling shake. It sounded like someone was taking a sledgehammer to the walls next door. It took another few seconds to realize that yes, we were having an earthquake right here in the metro-Washington, DC, area. Those things aren’t supposed to happen here but here it was. Now I am in a third floor apartment and I didn’t know what I to do. We prepare for tornadoes or hurricanes in this area, but earthquakes? Not so much. At any rate I scooped up the cat and ran to the door. The earth was still shaking . . . I didn’t know that those things lasted so long. I stood in the doorway not knowing whether to run down three flights of stairs and out into the open or to just brace myself and wait. I have no idea how long the quake lasted, but it seemed like an eternity. Shortly afterwards Richard called to check on me. He was on his way back to work after lunch and heard breaking news about the quake on the radio. I assured him that I was fine. At the moment though, I was wishing he was still in DC with me. Just to let you know how bad it was, I decided to post a few photos showing the damage in our apartment:
The first thing I noticed was that some oil cups in our Shabbos candelabra had fallen over:
I also saw that our Havdalah set was a bit askew, that the wine goblet had fallen over and the candle was a bit tilted . . . but then the candle always tilts so that may have had nothing to do with the earthquake:
As I walked through the apartment, I checked in our large storage closet only to find that some items had fallen over and that a couple of plastic bowls had fallen off the shelves:
And the last thing I discovered is that the earthquake had caused our Chanukah Menorah to scoot off the edge of the shelf so that it fell against the wall:
So there you have it! This is the damage to our place from today’s earthquake, this and some frayed nerves for both myself and Pele, my beloved blind cat! While there was some damage to a few buildings elsewhere, to my knowledge no one was hurt. Richard, we missed you today.
And a special note for all my west coast family and friends: We did too have an earthquake!
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