Holy temblors, Batman!
For those of you in the eastern part of the country, you experienced something today, didn’t you? A 5.8 quake hit near Mineral, VA today (about 40 miles NW of Richmond). Its effects were felt as far north as Portland, Maine. South of Mineral, people in South Carolina felt it, while Tennesseans felt it to the west. Some structures in Washington, DC sustained damaage; reports of flooding in the Pentagon basement have hit some news outlets, and apparently the National Cathedral was also damaged.
Wowzers. It was the largest tremor in recent history. Perhaps Virginia was just succumbing to peer pressure. A rare 5.3 rocked SE Colorado the day before, about 9 miles from the city of Trinidad, which is just north of the New Mexico border. I know that area, as I grew up in Colorado and then moved to New Mexico. Whoa!
And, because I’m a writer and reader, here’s a list of literary treatments of earthquakes, the oldest published in 1807. That book is
“The Earthquake in Chile” by Heinrich von Kleist. Originally published in 1807, Kleist’s novella takes place during the 1647 Santiago earthquake and ends tragically, with a young couple killed after having been blamed, in a sermon, for the disaster. But Kleist has a bigger purpose, which is to highlight the idea that meaning is a matter of interpretation, that what we know is what we see.
source
I hope everyone is okay, and now, East-coasters, get ready for the next weather event. Hurricane Irene is right around the corner.
source: weather.com
So here you go. Hurricane preparedness (scroll down on that page) and, just in case, earthquake safety tips. I am, after all, an apocalyptic-type. 8)
All rightie. Happy reading, and happy safety!
Andi Marquette 