Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Geography/History Earthquakes

geographyhistory

At 7:51 a.m. on Tuesday morning we had an Earthquake. The epicenter was about 80 miles South East of us and it was a 4.2 magnitude. It was near a town named Mossyrock, this is located near White Pass, the route we took on our way home from our vacation. The first map, shows the report from the US Geology site of the event of the Earthquake, shown in red. The second Map shows the area of Mossyrock (marked with the A) and remember we are near Aberdeen.

42.52.-125.-115


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CBS_SHZ_UW_--.2010111612

I knew right away what it was. This being Selena’s first experience she ran to the window to see what just hit the house. I jumped and ran to grab her away from the window. Though what we felt was mild in comparison to what it must have felt at Mossyrock, I still wasn’t sure what still might be to come, so I wanted to get Selena away from the window and closer to where we could duck and cover if need be. I explained what had just happened but she couldn’t comprehend any of it and just wanted to keep going to the window.

To distract her I got on line to find out more information about the earthquake. We then did some other research about earthquakes. I don’t think Selena really understood what had just happened.

Once I figured the worse was past us, I asked Selena what it felt like to her. She swayed from side to side and told me the earth swayed, her eyes were so big at this point, that I think things began to register with her what had just happened. For me I was sitting in my chair when it hit, so I felt like someone or something had hit the house as if to knock it off it’s foundation. I braced my self since I had the feeling that my chair was going to tip over.

We are happy to report that while the china hutch shook pretty good, we had nothing fall off the walls or out of the cabinet. We sustained no visible damage, just a shocked little girl, and yes I have to admit it gave me a little bit of a good case of nerves. A short while later we did discuss what to do should this ever happen again. Selena gladly practiced ducking and covering under the dining room table.

We were going to do something else for Geography this week, but since this event Selena is not wanting to talk about anything else, oh well, we will just go with the flow. Earthquakes it is this week.

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7 comments:

  1. Wow! A little bit of excitement - I'm glad it was just a little bit.

    I've only felt two tiny earthquakes - one here, and one in Oregon. They can still be unsettling.

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  2. I'm glad no one was hurt and nothing was damaged.

    My kids wouldn't want to talk about anything else either.

    WE went to a science museum this summer that had an earthquake simulator. C and R thought it was the greatest thing. I'm sure they would feel differently about the real thing. None of us have experienced an earthquake.

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  3. The one earthquake that hit while we were in California the kids didn't even notice. Which is probably good considering how they do with stuff like that.

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  4. Glad you are safe. You just reminded me to go back to doing our earthquake preparations.

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  5. Wow, that's crazy, we have never experienced an earthquake before. We don't have them here in FL but we have hurricanes EVERY year, the good thing is that we are in the middle of the state so they usually have weakened by the time they hit our house.

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  6. I am glad that this was able to be a great learning experience for you guys. Good for you that you remained calm. Thank you for sharing.

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  7. I am glad that it was a minor one. I seem to read somewhere that the new suggestion is to duck next to something that can squish under pressure, but will not collapse - like a big stack of books or paper. I really need to refresh my own earthquake readiness knowledge.

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