Earthquake vs Tornado

I have always said that I would take a tornado over an earthquake any day and that was before I had experienced one! Now I can absolutely say that that statement is true! Friday night we had an earthquake that measured 4.7. Now, to those of you who live in areas prone to earthquakes this may not seem like a big deal. To us however, it was a very big deal! We have never experienced an earthquake before even though they have happened here before.

The Friday night earthquake was actually early Saturday morning at 2:12 AM. My husband and I sat straight up in bed as the shaking started. We heard a loud boom that sounded a lot like thunder and then the heavy shaking started. He grabbed me to protect me and as soon as the shaking stopped we were out of bed and yelled at the kids to be sure they were ok. Surprisingly enough, they slept through it! Several of the 2 liter water bottles we had put up in the loft fell as well as other items that we had on shelves. Two of the bottles broke when they hit the floor so there was a good bit of water all over the place.

To say the least we were very shaken and scared. We scrambled for some towels to clean up the water and grabbed some clothes so we could go outside and check the animals. The animals were actually handling it very well. The geese were awake and squaking in low tones but they weren't frantic. The chickens didn't seem to bothered either. The poor cat was hiding under the bed however. Everything seemed ok so we tried to go back to bed but to say the least we didn't sleep very well after that.

Last night, which was Saturday, at 11:00 PM we had another quake that registered as a 5.6. This is offically the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the state. The epicenter for this one was about a mile south of us so of course we felt it as well but it didn't seem as strong as the first one. We found out this morning however, that one of our neighbors sustained some significant damage to their house.

At the top of the picture you can see where their chimney broke off and some of it fell on the ground. The rest of it fell through their roof into the living room. Pretty much everything fell out of the cabinets in their kitchen and there are broken items all over the house.

This is the downstairs bathroom. The glass on the floor was the mirror that was glued to the wall. It was a 1/4 inch thick and as you can see, it didn't come through the quake very well. Hopefully we won't have any more. We have felt a few aftershocks but so far no more major quakes. So, its offical, earthquakes suck and I will definitely be looking forward to tornado season.