Last night we had some nasty weather here in Chicagoland. The snow had stopped late in the evening with about 6 or 8 inches on the ground, but then the wind started with some real gusto. The forecast had talked of maybe 40 mile-per-hour gusts, so when I was awakened at 4:00 a.m. I thought that it had been a large gust of wind that had shaken the wall just a bit and caused the house to creak in an unusual way. Wrong.
Later this morning I learned that we had actually had an earthquake! Only about 4 on the Richter scale, but almost right underneath us. Strong enough to wake me up which is not an easy thing typically.
I was back in Michigan years ago, I think it was in '82 or '83, when I felt the last one. I recall it very well. It was mid-afternoon and I was standing in the doorway of my boss's office, talking with him and leaning against the door frame when our entire brick office building shook. It was about the same magnitude.
The shear power required to make the earth shake is awesome. The thing about the Richter scale is that each incremental number is ten times the force of the latter. A 5 is ten times more powerful than a 4. So for me, last night's little rumble reminded me that the recent quake in Haiti was over 100 times more powerful than what woke me from a sound sleep! That's an incredible perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment