A(nother) Date Which Will Live in Infamy...at Least if You're from VA

Headline hyperbole aside, our 5.8-er earthquake of August 23, 2011, that struck at roughly 2 PM and provided 20 harrowing and unsettling seconds of rumbling for Northern Virginians has generated many captivating stories and memorable accounts.  And, if you believe what our good friends on the West Coast are saying about us, possibly a little bit of hysteria and a source of entertainment, too.

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.  What’s so ironic about this quake was that upon its arrival, we were already primping for a natural disaster.  Only we were busy battening down the hatches because the forecasters told us her name was Irene, as in Hurricane Irene. Who said anything about earthquakes, especially one of such magnitude?  Those kinds of things don’t happen in these parts.  The last and only time VA got spanked like this was 114 years ago.  Per the United States Geological Society (USGS), we got rocked with one that measured comparatively back in 1897 when Giles County, VA was the epicenter for a 5.9 quake. (The strongest earthquake ever to hit the East Coast happened in 1886 in Charleston, SC and measured 7.3.  Second strongest was the aforementioned Giles County quake and this past one on Wednesday tied in severity with a 5.8 strength quake that rattled NY state in 1944.)  So, go on California, laugh all you want.  It’s all relative.  We’re really not as wimpy as you think.  We just endured the 3^rd largest earthquake ever on the East Coast.  That puts us on the medal stand, baby.

But considering how thin our area’s resume is when it comes to earthquakes, understandably, our reaction at the onset of this was dazed and confused.   Alexandria resident Ana Rivas Bertolo Beck said, “My thoughts at the time:  Earthquake?  Bomb in the Verizon Center garage?  Are the kids kicking the damn table again?  Luckily I was with the best peeps in the world lunching at Clyde’s…it made a strange experience into a comedic one.”   Another Alexandria resident, Emily Perez, was driving her car near Springfield Mall with her daughter, Lydia, when she felt her car rock back and forth.  Perez’s first thoughts were, “Oh no, car trouble,” so she pulled her car into a strip mall to see what was going on.  At that very instance, Perez’s cell phone rang and it was her son, Eddie, who was at home calling to tell her that “he felt the ground shaking in the house.”  Perez said her immediate thought was, “I am either hallucinating or having a dream.  There is no way Eddie, back home in Mount Vernon, could feel my car shaking in Springfield.”  Perez then noticed that many others were walking around the same parking lot that she had pulled off into, looked equally confused, and all with their cell phones affixed to their ears.  At that point, Perez said she realized it was an earthquake.  She said it was “a very surreal experience for a native Alexandrian who has never in her life experienced an earthquake.”

Another Alexandria resident, Yvonne Dacey, was getting her hair done in Old Town at the time the earthquake started.  She said, “Mason (her stylist) had just put the color on and I was to sit for 50 minutes.  Quake happened 20 minutes in.  When the chair started rocking, [I] thought a truck had hit the building.”  Her hairdresser ran out of the store screaming for everyone to get out.  Dacey decided, “I am not going out on the street with this stuff on my hair.”  So, she stayed in her chair, read her magazine and “waited for the fun to be over.”  (It is worth noting that Dacey originally hails from Oregon.)  Mindy Gregory-Fortier of Alexandria was shoe shopping when she first felt it.  She said she looked at her kids and said, “BOMB?”.  Gregory-Fortier also experienced “several (earthquakes) in California” but said, “this was MUCH LONGER” than any she had been in.

Susan Fleischman and Leigh Mang live in Alexandria but were vacationing in Sandbridge (Virginia Beach area) with their families and friends when the earthquake struck.   Fleischman, who has “felt lots of earthquakes in my 11 years in California, most small and ‘fun’ until Northridge---that was terrifying” said her first thought, at this one, as she sat on the beach, was: “Gosh, the wind is really moving my chair.  Wait, that’s not wind and my stomach is topsy-turvy…it’s an earthquake.”   But her stomach apparently recovered quickly as Mang admitted that shortly after the movement stopped, they invented and poured cocktails they aptly named, “Quakes on the Beach”.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the personal account of my friend David Hamrick, a meteorologist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who lives in Alexandria.  He said, “I was in my living room watching news coverage of Hurricane Irene, and out of nowhere I started feeling a trembling effect, similar to a garbage truck rumbling down the street.  It then escalated to a rolling back-and-forth motion that seemed to shake the entire house.  At that point, I realized we were indeed having an earthquake. I went outside briefly until all of the shaking had stopped.  Nervous, I went back inside to search for news coverage on this incredibly rare event, and less than five minutes later, the news story broke on the event.  After watching news coverage for a little while, I looked all around the house for any signs of damage, both inside and out, and pleased to report that I did not see any signs of damage to the townhouse.  Around 3:15 pm, I left for work and everything returned to normal.”

Kids in our area experienced ominous concurrences with the earthquake too.  Kathryn Poling of Fairfax Station said her son, Matt, was in bed at the time reading “Time Machine”.   She said, “He got to the part where the world is ending and the room began to shake.”  Anne Lawrence of Alexandria shared that her daughter, Caroline’s friend, Raven, was watching television at the time and it was “a tv special…about volcanoes.”

Many people reported interesting encounters in the workplace too.   Mark Woodrum was in Raleigh, NC for a meeting when the quake hit.  He said, “We were in a meeting and 3 people from San Jose (California) were visiting.  One said, ‘That is an earthquake.’  The local people said, ‘We don’t get earthquakes here. ‘”  Woodrum likened the experience to a “rumbling for about 10 or 15 seconds, like a truck was driving by you in an elevated parking garage.”  Cheryl Atwood was working in McLean when she first knew something was going on.  “One of my co-workers was in panic mode running a couple of feet one way and then back a couple of feet.  She was yelling at one of our emergency monitors what was she supposed to do because she’s never experienced an earthquake and you could see tears in her eyes,” said Atwood.  As for Atwood herself, she said, “After it ended, I was thinking, ‘that was cool!’”

There were also those who were stuck at work (or in the gridlock that ensued afterwards) who weren’t sure what to expect upon returning home.  Jane Lassiter of Manassas said, there was “no damage in/around the house.  Due to my poor housekeeping skills, let’s just say I’m a little behind on my dusting duties, there is clear evidence that our wine glass collection definitely did some dancing on the glass shelves.”

But in spite of our area's relative inexperience with earthquakes, we actually fared pretty well.  Damage was minimal, no lives were lost and we now have a great alibi for the question, “What were you doing on Wednesday, August 23 at roughly 2 PM?”   As for lessons learned, Suzy Kordenbrock of Glenwood, MD offered, “We need to practice our disaster readiness!  I screamed ‘earthquake’ and told everyone to 'run downstairs.'  Jeffrey (her son) said, 'run upstairs.'  Turns out we should have run outside!”

So, Yes Virginia, we managed to survive this earthquake.  But we can’t rest on our laurels quite yet because Hurricane Irene is still on our dance cards for this weekend.  Per meteorologist Hamrick’s instructions, we need to:  1.  Ensure all gas tanks are filled up.  2.  Have plenty of extra batteries and portable light sources on hand.  3.  Clean gutters and downspouts to allow good drainage of heavy rain.  4.  Ensure all cell phones and portable devices are fully charged. And if I might add a helpful hint of my own---make sure the liquor cabinet is well-stocked.