Unusual Weather

Or is it? That is what everyone around here keeps telling me. But, I’m beginning to think that I should pretty much just expect anything. I mean what would you think when you experience a 5.9 earthquake on Tuesday and a hurricane on Saturday? Even though Irene took away our power for 3 days, the earthquake was a bit scarier. Probably for the simple fact that we had no warning it was coming. (You better believe folks heeded the hurricane warning after we just had an earthquake.)

I was on the top floor of our building when I felt the first shake. I sat in my office for a minute but once the building started to sway and pictures fell from the bookshelves, I decided it was probably best to see what the heck was going on. When I stepped out in the hallway, our program assistant was bolting out of her office. No words were spoken between us; we just latched arms and make a mad dash to the stairwell. Side Note: Apparently, this is NOT what you are supposed to do during an earthquake. But how the heck was I suppose to know. In elementary school, we learned all about what to do in case of a fire or tornado but never an earthquake. (Don’t get many of those in TN.) And really, common sense wasn’t prevailing at this point, it was all about survival. My brain said, “Get the heck out of this swaying building that could collapse at any moment.”

Sad part about our little escape story was that it wasn’t until we were both safely outside did we wonder where our student workers were, oops! They ended up following us out but I guess it doesn’t say too much about us that we wouldn’t even think about their safety. Life lesson here is that when it comes to fight or flight, I’m more of the flight kind of girl, and you just better follow me out ‘cause I’m not waiting on you!