How About an Earthquake?

If you need a distraction from the coronavirus outbreak, I highly recommend an earthquake.

An earthquake will make you nearly forget that that most of the world is on lock down. You'll be so preoccupied with managing the physiological side effects of the adrenaline rush and trying to keep your kids from having mental breakdowns that you won't even have time to look at COVID-19 stats.

I speak from experience - since yesterday morning, we were greeted with a 5.7 magnitude quake followed by over 90 aftershocks (and possibly more to come).

The first 9 minutes

I'm a little nervous to blog about it because things have been changing so fast in the past few days that what I'm writing now could be completely outdated by the time you read it.

We could all be dead!

(Am I being morbid? My apologies. But I'm just sayin).

(Also, I often schedule my blog posts, so never assume that I'm alive because I posted. I might have scheduled it ahead of time. You might read my words after my death someday).

(Oh shoot, I'm being morbid again).

Anyway, I've been afraid of earthquakes since childhood. Here in Utah, we've been told for decades that we are due for a "big one." I've basically imagined my own death via earthquake regularly for my entire life. This was not the "big one." This was a practice round. They won't let us count this one. It seems unfair. I think we should get the next five decades off. I'm selfish like that.

I had been awake from 5:00-6:30 in the morning, and then I went back to sleep. I was having nightmares about going to prom with a guy from high school. He was wearing a red silk shirt, and it clashed horribly with my dress when suddenly, there was noise and everything was shaking. Scotty and I both flew out of bed. Scotty ran down the stairs and back up the stairs and back down the stairs (exactly what you're not supposed to to) whilst repeatedly yelling “Holy shit! Holy shit!"

(It is what it is. I'm sure we get a free pass for profanities hollered during earthquakes).

The shaking seemed endless. My calves seized up, my heart raced, and I shook for hours afterward. When the quaking was done, I had everyone get shoes on and gather in the living room. We put the TV on the floor and and rearranged some things in the house for safety to get ready for aftershocks.

A few items fell, but nothing broke. There are a lot of things we put into place years ago in case of an earthquake, including 2x4's across the front of our storage room shelves to keep our food from falling off. It worked! We would have had quite the mess otherwise.

Some of the TP got away

We had several aftershocks right away, and then many more throughout the day. A quick 4.6 hit in the afternoon, and we ran for cover. That was the worst of the aftershocks.

Take cover... bring sippy

The epicenter of the earthquake was in my hometown about 3.5 miles away. The closer my family lives to Magna, the more damage they experienced. We were fortunate to still have power, but many streets around us had outages.

I've always felt like God does the best He can to get people where they need to be even in times of trial. Over the weekend I had the thought that this is the best time for an earthquake because everyone is home. When the earthquake jolted me out of bed, my first thought was, "Oh shit! I didn't mean it!"

(There was a lot of "Oh shit!" Let's be honest).

But here's the thing - I am so incredibly grateful that everyone was home. On a normal day, I could have had kids in school. Scotty could have been in a 28 story office building downtown (no one there was harmed, thank heavens). I can't even imagine what that would be like.

I may never let anyone leave the house again.

We were all on edge for most of the day. During the first hours, all I could do was pace and text people. I didn't even want to eat! (Don't worry, I forced it, and then I stress ate for the rest of the day). Every time we felt an aftershock, we had to assess whether we needed to take cover. Our hearts would start racing all over again.

One observation: It is absolutely necessary to have junk food on-hand in an emergency. I was dying for some chocolate and some baked goods. Luckily I had the good sense to put chocolate chips in some banana bread the day before. I also had a bag of Cadbury mini eggs that I'd purchased on my Monday grocery store trip "just in case." I don't normally keep candy in the house unless it has a designated purpose. It was so intuitive of me to buy the mini eggs! Plus... there was nothing else available in the store, so I shrugged and said, "Guess I have no choice but to buy these two giant boxes of Lucky Charms and this bag of Easter candy." What can you do?

At the end of the day (while still texting family - "Did anyone feel that?"), I was so overwhelmed with gratitude. Even in hard times, there is so much to be thankful for. There are so many ways this could have been worse. We still have to face the unknown right now, but I have seen numerous miracles and blessings in it all. I want to make sure I get them written down. That was actually my intent before the earthquake - to start writing down all of the tender mercies I was seeing with the coronavirus outbreak. Now I have even more work to do!