earthquake!

At 5:04 a.m. I sat up in bed immediately alarmed. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that our house was shaking! I woke Alex up and alerted him to the shaking. He jumped out of bed and went down the hall to check on the kids and look outside. It felt like a big, BIG truck rolling by but it just didn't stop until Alex was half way down the hall, about 7-8 seconds after it started. He had thought a plane crashed nearby but couldn't see any smoke. Both kids stayed fast asleep.

Was that a truck, plane crash, gas leak under our house, earthquake?? I searched the internet but only came across old earthquake data. I posted on Facebook, "Umm, did anyone else feel that?" It took me a while to fall back asleep.

I was somewhat surprised and relieved watching the morning news to find out that we did indeed experience an earthquake (Germantown, MD was the epicenter). In fact, this was the largest earthquake on record in the area -- a 3.6 -- since they started recording in 1974. Despite that only half of people in the area woke up for the experience, there were no injuries, no major property damage, and it wasn't even the largest recorded in the US on that particular day. But still exciting enough for us!