After a 5.9 earthquake hit the East coast, we New Yorkers all breathed a sigh of relief (once we knew it was Mother Nature shaking up our world and not some terrorist plot). Still, as buildings were evacuated and phone lines jammed, it felt like an eerie reminder of that day almost ten years ago now.
I was sitting at my desk with the chair up against the wall talking on the phone to my wife. Suddenly, I it felt like I was on the Cyclone at Coney Island. I asked her if she felt it too, and she said that the house was rattling. I looked at my lunch on my desk and water in my bottle listed back and forth, causing me to turn around to make sure it wasn't a Jurassic Park moment. Thankfully, no huge dinosaur was trying to get into my office. Then it dawned on me: we just had an earthquake.
Once I hung up the phone I turned on the radio, and I again got that 9-11 kind of feeling. On every channel it seemed regular programming had stopped and reporters and anchors and people on the street were reacting to this seismic event. Some people sounded hysterical; others were like most New Yorkers reacting to something and took it in their stride.
Still, afterwards it seemed like we all panicked a bit too much. We yelled a bit too vociferously, ran down the stairs and out into the street a little too quickly, and starting calling everyone we knew and loved ones to make sure they were in on the collective lunacy post earthquake.
Meanwhile, we hear that those hardy (or is it hardened?) earthquake experts out on the West coast all thought we were earthquake wimps. This is similar to the Mid-westerners calling us blizzard wimps. We have heard it all before and are basically inured to such insults now.
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