Virginia earthquake!

The big news of the day that a rare earthquake hits Virginia.

So there I am sitting at work talking with a client and suddenly the building starts shaking.  It takes a couple seconds to realize that we are having an earthquake, in Virginia--weird!  So naturally that becomes the topic of our discussion rather quickly as the building continues to shake.  I think I better check out what is happening in the rest of the building as I am hearing a bunch of noise outside my office.  That turns out to be my co-workers talking of their astonishment. 

It quickly becomes evident that it isn't going to be a severe earthquake just enough to shake things up a little, not tossing things around or dropping pictures from the walls.  But is starts shaking people up too, meaning that some clients are getting worried about driving home, "what if we have another one on the way home" and that sort of thing. 

People evacuating buildings in VA during the earthquake.

The staff is a little shaken as well as staff start calling and receiving calls from family members asking if they were alright and felt the earthquake.  Children calling parents, siblings and so forth.  One co-worker commented that it was sad that he was calling family and friends that he hadn't been in touch with for a while, just because they came to mind and he wanted to make sure they were alright.

I called my Mom who was "pretty scared" and she totally lost her focus on going through her kitchen cupboards with the help of my youngest daughter.  "We are just watching the news now instead of doing the work" she said.  Then we got an email from our central office saying that they were closing down and sending us home "as soon as you can secure your office".  So we got things put away and came home. 

Having a small earthquake of 5.9 on the Richter scale really lets you know how vulnerable we are, because while things are shaking around you knew there wasn't a dog-on-thing we could do about it.  And if the shaking got bad enough to bring the office down, you couldn't keep it from happening.  Humility must be the natural response to nature's power. 

Now that it seems we have escaped the earthquake with no damage (one picture fell down at home) then it seems that all eyes are quicker to look at the strengthening hurricane Irene that seems to be headed our way.