I wrote this entry before the devastating earthquake hit Nepal. It’s purely coincidence that it posted around the same time. My thoughts go out to the people of that country.
Sometime this week they’ll be doing an earthquake drill here at work. I’m glad to hear it, because I have never had to deal with this concept in my life. In Florida, we had hurricanes. You have to be completely helpless (such as those unfortunate victims who had no ability to leave prior to Katrina), or a total idiot, to not survive a hurricane. In the pantheon of natural disasters, the hurricane is the most polite. “Yes, I’m coming, and will most likely destroy your town, but I’d never show up unannounced. Here’s two days’ notice.”
Earthquakes, on the other hand, are just plain rude. Not only do they arrive without warning, but their aftershocks mean you can’t be certain when the trauma will be over. At least when a hurricane leaves, it has the decency to stay gone.
This exercise also makes me realize that my home disaster kit is woefully out of date and scattered amongst all the unpacked crap in my spare room. I really need to address that, and soon.
My biggest fear is that an earthquake will hit while I’m at work on the drawbridge. The first thing that will happen during a serious quake here is that both the approaches to this particular bridge will collapse, and I will be stranded in the middle of the canal. Also, my car will be in the drink, for sure. The phones will probably be down, and it will be an awfully long time before anyone comes to rescue me. When and if I finally get to leave, I’ll have to walk the 15 miles home, and meanwhile my dogs will be without food and possibly water, and they’ll be completely freaked out.
I honestly don’t know how to deal with all this. I’ll have to say a Unitarian prayer, light a candle, do a dance, and knock on wood that the situation never arises. That, and get off my lazy butt and fix my disaster kit.
[Image credit: huffingtonpost.com]
The View from a Drawbridge 
A few extra gallons of water stashed away somewhere on each bridge, and some food bars [a kind you don’t like all that much, so you won’t eat them now). Blankets, also, maybe–talk with your co-workers about this? Arrange with your neighbors for dog care–and there might be a water dispenser good for several days. Water is more urgent than food.
I built a special table to get under, about 20 years back. There are water bottles stored under it. We were treated to a 6.8-er back in ’01, but that one caught me at work. It was pretty exciting all right. I’ve been thru scads and scads of smaller ones. Many quakes are so little and brief that you don’t notice or you think it was a truck going by with an unbalanced load, but it’s always good to think ahead.
I hope our bridges survive to their centennials–which are quite near–and you too, though yours is farther ahead…
Thanks Kerik! They do have water, although it’s over a year old and really needs changing out. They also have Military MREs, which will sustain life but probably taste horrible. Blankets are a good idea, though. I’ll suggest that, for sure. I really do need to get my act together.
They keep trying to get to the point where they know they are coming. But it might be like 1 minute warning, which could almost be worse than not knowing, depending where you are.
I think about that whenever I’m driving on a lower level of a stacked highway. Would I even WANT to know at that point?