Anticlimactic End of Days

The past week has been pretty surreal for people on the East Coast.  Last week, we had a moderate size earthquake that was felt up and down the entire eastern seaboard.  I was at work when the earthquake struck, actually in the middle of a teleconference with some people from our Pennsylvania site.  There were a series of small rumbles and the room started to shake slightly, but it was weak enough that I thought it could have just been some construction.  However, when the person on the telecon mentioned that her room was also shaking, we immediately thought it was an earthquake.

In typical fashion, my company over-reacted and we had to evacuate for a couple of hours to make sure things were safe.  Luckily, there really wasn't too much damage up here in northern New Jersey.  Even more luckily, it was a nice, warm summer day and it was nice to sit outside.  Interestingly enough, I've lived for seven years in California---in all seven years, I had only experienced one earthquake and it was weaker than this one on the East Coast.

Only several days later, everyone panicked again when it looked like Hurricane Irene was settling in on a collision course with New York City.  The news media had a field day with it---there was 24-hour coverage on every station and predictions of catastrophe.  Really, what could be better than having a disaster hit the biggest media market in the country?  Particularly a slow moving storm that crawled it's way up the East Coast?

The hurricane bullseye

Due to the coverage, everyone went crazy.  We stopped by the grocery store on Friday and it was a mad house.  Shelves were literally cleared bare.  People were carting out gallons of bottled water.  There was no milk or bread to be had---that always confused me.  If you're worried about being trapped at home, why would you stock up on perishable food like bread or even worse milk?  It doesn't make sense.  People were filling up their bathtubs with water.  We hunkered down at home Saturday and waited for the storm.

And it turned out that we survived with barely a scratch.  By the time Hurricane Irene got up here, it had turned into Tropical Storm Irene and its wind speed had died down.  We got hit with essentially a day long rain storm---not even any thunder or lightning.  We didn't have any flooding and the power might have flickered for a little bit, but otherwise we were unscathed.  We did lose our cable tv and internet, but that's probably not something worth complaining about.  (Remember that Morton's Fork?  I guess that decision became pretty easy...)

To be fair, we were pretty lucky.  There were certainly places that got hit a lot harder than us and there are still some places without power.  And there were a few downed trees around the neighborhood which made getting to work like navigating an obstacle course.  Check out some of the hurricane photos.  And most of the warnings were concerned around overland flooding, which has been an issue.  Still, it does feel pretty anticlimactic after all the dreaded warnings of another Katrina (one tv station was even prediction running out of body bags...)

So, an earthquake and a hurricane...and there were a couple of tornadoes this spring and some crippling blizzards this winter.  What's next?  The end of days?  2012?

At least I can cross off celebrating a birthday in the middle of a hurricane from the list...