Living on the
east coast of the United States has, for the most part, allowed us to live in a
magical state of
oblivion when it comes to some of
Nature's
most
violent
rages.
Until last year, we had not experienced
tornados...although by comparison, ours are small when stacked against the
F4 and
5 terrorizing
Tornado Alley in our middle states, they do touch down now often enough we are no longer
wide-eyed over reports of their visits.
I grew up having very few
strange weather events. One occured when we'd gone to the
hardware store in
Newtown, PA. While we were gone,
a storm hit. We didn't think anything of it. Storms were...typical.
Thunder, lightning, winds, driving rain...the usual...until we got home.
We had a huge picture window across the back wall of our farm sized kitchen. It blew OUT, not in while we were gone.
How? We never found the answer, but Dad had to pile himself back into the car and head back to the hardware store for a healthy length of pane glass.
Another weird event happened when I was about
eight. I loved running around in the rain storms...Nature's
water game...It was pouring down with delightful intensity and so cool against my bathing suited flesh...Zig zagging like a loon, I zig zagged across the street and froze.
How come it wasn't raining over here?
Right down
the middle of our road, (Township Line Road), the rain sheeting created a
wall on one side and nothing on the other. How bizarre that was. I never learned what caused THAT
phenomenom either.
Over twenty odd years ago, the ground felt like it had
exploded and the sound made our ears hurt.
Earthquake, we all thought...until we learned a nearby
factory had exploded...we were feeling and hearing the resonating shake and
bang.
But today we found out we are not immune from the
fury of
ground shakes.
They are saying the
epicenter is near Richmond,
VA and it was a 5.9 quake at 0.6 miles deep and it spread. I am hearing from some as far north as
Toronto. I don't know about that. I know we felt it here in
NJ.
Never would have thought my
apartment building, comprised of brick and concrete was so inconsequential it would
shake back and forth and up and down the way it did.
Was it a water main break? That was my
first guess when the first
teeny
tremor hit, but the
tremeor increased. Nope, that was NOT a water main break. (We've had a lot of those...in fact we had one just last week and went nearly an entire day
without water.)
I met neighbors I had never seen before because we all raced from our apartments in a state of
mass confusion.
What happened? We were to find out shortly.
Twenty-thirty seconds that was all it took. The news stations went on full time covereage alert. We had been shaken by the rippling
fist of a quake centered in VA, and we were not the last stop in this quakes journey to remind us we are fools to think
Mother Nature cannot send our world into immeidtale upheaval any time she wants to.
Hurricanes,
nor-easters...even the rare lake effects
snow storm in August...we know them and know them well...we have come to know tornados...and now an earthquake.
When I went in to check on this quake I learned
Colorado was also hit, and yesterday
Trinidad was hit.
Mother Nature is truly flexing her punch, and although this strike was not monumentally destructive, she must truly be ticked at us.
We exist on a living, breathing, ever changing
VIOLENT planet...there's nowhere to escape Mother Nature...unless you want to try inhabiting the
Moon or
Mars. All you'd have to dodge is...well the temperature and a
meteor or hundreds.
Mother Nature NOT mankind is ultimately our Mistress, no matter how much smarter we think we are.
Now that I am shaken and stirred...(yes it does leave you
queasy)...I am going to lie down for a bit and hopefully regain some dominion over...well not the ground beneath me obviously, so my own body.
Bless you all and
be safe.
