QUAKE, RATTLE, AND ROLL

Last Friday morning you didn't need to set your alarm or even need a wakeup call if you were in a motel around here. Mother Nature did that for you around 5:37 am. I had woke up with a leg cramp and was trying to straighten it out when all of a sudden I began to hear a large roar. At first I thought it was a big wind and I looked toward then wind. That's when the bed started jumping up and down as an earthquake began to rattle the house.

I said 'Earthquake!' to my wife Peggy and she said, 'No it's not, Baxter (our dog) is just scratching his back under the bed.' I got up real quick and went in the dining room to see the chain lamp swinging back and forth. We then turned on the television to see that they had felt it too and WAVE 3 in Louisville, KY replayed video of their light fixtures bouncing up and down.

The picture here is of the main shock (in blue) and the aftershock that followed 5 hours later. The main shock measured in at 5.4 on the Richter scale at first but was later downgraded to a 5.2. The aftershock (in red) measured in at 4.6.

I went around talking to people for a story for our local paper and most had the same experience as me, hearing the roar before the jolt hit. Some people, however, told me they slept through it and didn't hear a thing or even feel anything. Those people also told me they wish they had been awake so they could have felt it. There was another aftershock Monday morning at 1:37 that measured in at 4.0. It felt like a bowl of jello quivering when it hit.

I've talked with people from the United State Geological Survey (USGS) and they told me the aftershocks could go on for months with the possibility of an aftershock bigger than the initial quake.

The main shock was felt in 11 states from Wisconsin to Georgia from Kansas to eastern Ohio. One girl just 38 miles from the epicenter told me all she had to do to know what was going on was to look at a chair in her room that was rolling back and forth.

I must admit it tattered the nerves a wee bit when it first happened but then the adrenaline gland kicked in and I've been waiting to feel more aftershocks. I think we'll get another one that we'll be able to feel because the it's been really quiet there the last 36 hours with only aftershocks not even a flea could feel. I've been monitoring a seismogram in Ebenezer, Tennessee to keep track of how things are going with it.

It was my second quake, having felt in in 1987 that was a 5.1 but this one was much stronger and a lot louder.

But I guess the main thing now is just wait and see what quakes next. New Madrid is overdue for a big one. When that one hits you just won't shake. You'll have trouble just standing up. We'll wait and see.