St. Louis Earthquake!!

Keri here. You may have already heard, but early this morning at around 4:35am, St. Louis all the way up to Wisconsin felt a 5.4 earthquake. It was a gentle, rumbling one, not rolling or a sudden jolt. Now, having grown up in southern CA, anything under a 6.0 normally doesn't faze me. I was scared of earthquakes when I was younger, but by the time I was 17, I had a routine with middle-of-the-night earthquakes of waking up and thinking, "Is it getting worse or better?....Good...better...I can go back to sleep" Or "Oh crap, worse...I have to get out of bed now." Well last night's quake shook me up for several reasons, though it was a small one and I'm used to that feeling. Here are some reasons...

1. A little history for you. St. Louis is on the New Madrid fault line, which is acutally a bigger fault line than the San Andreas fault (the one I lived on in CA which is much more active). However, the last big earthquake that St. Louis had was in the 1800's, and the earthquake this morning was the biggest felt in the whole midwest region in the last 40 years. It's not all that comforting to hear that a fault line is once again active in your area.

2. This is especially concerning as the entire town is made out of brick. As I was lying in bed, hoping that the quake wasn't a pre-shock (which happened quite often in CA...a littler one before a big one), I realized that the original construction of our apartment building was 1884. That does NOT give me a whole lot of confidence in its ability to withstand seismic activity. I was suddenly glad that our door to our back deck and backyard is in our bedroom so we can peace out of the building if we ever really do get a big one. This city will be a MESS if we ever have a large earthquake.

3. This was the first night earthquake that I haven't been in my parent's house for. After an earthquake was over, my parents would always come down the hall to my room and make sure I was okay. Now, don't get me wrong...I love my husband dearly. However, when it comes to middle-of-the-night happenings, he is sometimes less than comforting (He slept for the first part of the quake and when I woke him up and told him we were having an earthquake, he said, "huh." and promptly went right back to sleep. In the morning, he didn't even believe me that we had had an earthquake and had no recollection of me waking him up and talking to him...nothing like marital comfort in the scary times! :)

Anyways, I was up for a good 45 minutes afterwards and then went back to sleep and dreamed that our building had structural damage and we had to evacuate and then CJ went back to get something and the building collapsed on him and he died. Rough night!