The Great Quake

Ok, so my friends in CA and Asia are going to laugh at me. . . .but we had an earthquake in Virginia in 2003.  Which was a VERY BIG DEAL for us.

In my cleanup process today, I found an article which I cut out of the newspaper in December of 2003.  The news of the earthquake was front page news the next day.  The epicenter was at Elk Hill Farm where I was working at the time.

I know exactly where the epicenter was.  Under my cottage.

We were having a cottage 'informal' right after school.  We had one of these every day, to discuss resident and staff concerns.  Suddenly, there was a series of loud 'Booms' followed by the ground shaking violently.  The other staffer, an Army veteran, was out of the collage like a shot.  I instinctively focused on getting each of the teenagers out of the cottage.  Counting them several times as we all went out the front door.  Panicking when there seemed to be one boy missing. (turns out I had forgotten he was off the campus).  At this point, none of us knew what was going on.  It could have been a bomb in the basement, or a plane crash, or anything.

We all gathered a short distance from the cottage with residents and staffers from other cottages.  The ground continued to shake as aftershocks hit us.  We laughed with nervous energy, trying to convince each other that we weren't afraid.

Later news reports would confirm that the center of the earthquake was situated near our rolling acres of farmland.  The quake was fairly mild; yet there had been some structural damage to some of our buildings.  All in all, it was a singular event for those of us at the farm. . .a topic of conversation for weeks to follow.

So this newspaper article has gone into the 'save pile'.  Incidently, the 'save pile' is smaller than 'Mt. Throwaway'.  Guess I am finally coming to grips with being a pack rat.  Heh.

Comments

[MrsVeteran]

Heh. My mother once came over to help me clean up, and every time I threw something away, she cried, "YAY! We threw something away!"

At one point, we found a gum wrapper, and I threw it in the garbage sack, and mom yells, "YAY! We threw something away!"

I'm like, "Mom, you don't have to do that for obvious trash."

I mean, okay, I'm a packrat, but I don't generally keep empty gum wrappers! (Unless they're from really cool gum, like, from Cambodia or something.)