There was an East Coast earthquake on Tuesday, August 23. It was covered on plenty of news sources, so I won't go into all the details. But I do want to explain one thing that keeps getting asked from those who didn't experience it.
Why did people leave the buildings? You're not supposed to leave buildings during an earthquake. And it was only a 5.9. What's the big deal?
Here's the thing. We didn't know it was an earthquake until later. When you've never experienced one, you don't know what it feels like. My coworkers and I didn't think of earthquake.
Other thoughts raced through our heads – The building was unstable. There was a train or truck accident. A bomb went off or some other terrorist attack.
A lot of us lived in or near NYC and DC during 9/11/01. Many of us don't think about it on a daily basis, but when something like that happens, we immediately go back to that before we have a chance to even process what's going on. (Yes, I brought up 9/11, but I think it's a valid point here).
And I think that's part of why people were scared. In hindsight, the shaking itself wasn't so bad. It was not knowing what it was, how long it would last, and what would happen next.
When we felt the building shake, we thought it might collapse. So we left our buildings. And we tried to get as far away from the building as possible, expecting it to fall.
It wasn't until we checked the news and social networking sites on our phones that we read it was an earthquake. Had I known it was an earthquake, I probably would've done the 'duck and cover under a desk' routine. (We had earthquake drills when I lived in Ohio). You're not supposed to run outside during a 'quake. But again – we didn't know it was an earthquake. Some of us even doubted it when we first read it on the news. But most of us felt a lot better once we heard that's what it was. It wasn't that we were freaked out that there was an earthquake. We just didn't know what was happening.
When we walked back inside the building, I saw that an email was sent asking us all to evacuate the building until we figured out what was happening and to assess the damage. I didn't see it when it was sent because I already made the split-second decision to leave. But it showed how little we knew about what was going on.
Now that I know what an earthquake feels like, there's a better chance that I'll take the proper steps if I experience one again.