The Story I Was Told

As best as I can figure, I was in the car driving my son to the playground when it happened.  The earthquake yesterday that is.  I felt nothing as I drove along listening to my son get more and more excited as he figured out where I was driving to.

Shortly after our arrival at the playground I received a text from my wife telling me her building had been evacuated due to a possible earthquake but no one knew for sure.  There is a minor fault line under NYC and we occasionally will get a small tremor so I thought nothing of it.  My only reply to my wife was to ask if she was coming home early.

A few minutes after this I received a text from my sister-in-law Melina telling me they were all safe but their building had been evacuated.  This one got my attention.  You see, my six year old daughter was with Melina along with my niece and my wife's parents.  It's one thing to get a message from my wife about a building evacuation in Manhattan (a not uncommon occurrence) and another thing entirely to find out my daughter had just been through an earthquake.

I wasn't concerned for her safety.  I already knew they were OK.  I was however, very interested in what had happened and what specifically had gone on around my daughter and niece.  So I pulled up the information about the earthquake on my phone and read over it while my son played on the playground.

Later, when we got back home, I gave Melina a call to learn their story.  Here it is pieced together to the best of my ability from conversations with Melina, my niece Kali and my daughter Caelyn.

Caelyn, Kali, Melina, Grammy and Grampa were in the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian looking at the earthquake display.  Melina pointed out the fault line running under California.  Caelyn asked her if there were any fault lines in New Jersey.  Melina told her there was not.

So there can never be an earthquake here then, asked Caelyn.  No, there can never be an earthquake here, Melina assured her.  They then went down to the basement to eat lunch.

Never say never.

As they were eating lunch, everything began to shake and small debris fell from the ceiling.  Some people started screaming.  Melina, Grammy and Grampa collected the kids and headed for the doors as the building was evacuated.  Caelyn told me she started to cry though Melina said she didn't really.  She just got close.

It was a chaotic situation on the street as everyone was being evacuated and no one had anywhere to go.  Eventually, they all made their was back to the hotel.  Caelyn, thinking earthquakes were a common occurrence in D.C. declared she would never come back.

As I spoke to the girls later that day, they informed me the worst part was that because the museum was evacuated, they didn't get to go to the gift shop.