Friday, April 18, 2008

Earthquake? In the Midwest?

Around 4-something this morning, I was shaken awake...probably by the earthquake that originated in West Salem, Il. But, at the time, I thought it was my husband. Annoyed and unable to comprehend what he was saying, I went back to sleep.

Later this morning, I heard on the news that we'd experienced an earthquake. And I said, "Earthquake? But we live in Chicago!" My husband rolled his eyes and said "that's what I was trying to tell you last night." Guess I should try to pay more attention. :)

Apparently, the midwest is on top of a pretty serious fault line. Wikipedia has some good info on it. There were some disastrous earthquakes in 1811-1812, measuring 7.0 to 7.9 on the richter scale. There were severe landslides and ground warping, the town New Madrid was destroyed, and the Mississippi river flowed backwards. This fault line acts up every few hundred years, and affects as many as five states. And we thought California had it bad! :)

2 comments:

Stephanie Reed said...

Hi, Tabitha, this is Stef from Verla Kay's. Glad you're okay. I'm not sure if the shaking here would have awakened me. It took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on, and by then it was over.

Tabitha said...

It was over quickly here, too. Did you feel the aftershocks? We had two tiny tremors, and that was all.