Earthquake
On Tuesday, August 23rd we experienced a 5.9 earthquake that lasted 45 seconds. 45 seconds it turns out is long enough for me to sprint upstairs, rip Sweet Pea and Peanut from their naps and race downstairs with both of them in my arms, grabbing Little Man on my way out to the front yard. I had so many thoughts in those 45 seconds. I didn't register earthquake as much as I registered the possibility that my house was coming down and I had to get my kids to safety. We stood on the front lawn, Little Man in a t-shirt and buzz lightyear underwear, Sweet Pea in just her diaper and Peanut crying because he was standing in bare feet on grass and really wanted to be sleeping. After about 10 minutes we all went back inside and Peanut tried to go back to sleep. The house escaped unharmed and in fact, there were no injuries reported in our area at all. There was some significant damage to the National Cathedral and Washington Monument. It is another one of those "where were you" moments in history and so I wanted to record our story since they are all too little to remember. Little Man did end up in our bed that night with nightmares of monsters shaking his bed. I think it was really the 4.2 aftershock that made him think there were monsters shaking his bed. All returned to normal the next day and thoughts of the earthquake started to fade with Little Man UNTIL all talk turned to the impending Hurricane Irene.
Hurricane Irene hit land on Saturday, August 27th and swept up the east coast. It was all anyone was talking about for the days prior because it was the first hurricane to be making landfall in 3 years and it was a massive storm. I took many more precautions than I would normally take because I was still feeling a bit vulnerable after the earthquake and it is different when you have 3 little ones to worry about. The storm lost a lot of power and it was a Cat 1 when it got to us. We lost power and had a rough night with kids awake due to a silent and dark house but other than that there was nothing to report. Our power was out from 3:20 am - 11:00 am which isn't bad, all things considered.
So there you have it, the first natural disasters in our area that affected the kids. Little Man did experience a hurricane in Cabo San Lucas while I was pregnant with him but that was even more of a non-event than Hurricane Irene.
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