Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Reminds me of the earthquake around the DC area in 2011. We felt it here in Raleigh quite well. I was, like now, typing on my computer when the monitor started moving back and forth and I heard one of the wooden frame works of the apartment building make a loud cracking sound.
I had lived in Vermont which isn't usually affected by earthquakes but there was one about 70 miles away in New York State a couple of times so I was able to recognize that it was just a minor movement and never left my computer. However, I looked out the window and saw a whole lot of people standing out in the street from our building. Speaking to them some of them later it seemed that none of them had ever felt earthquakes in their lives and were in shock. The news later reported that offices in Downtown Raleigh all emptied out.
That was just part of the things that I got to experience in my early connection with North Carolina. First, on December 26th while I was here spending time with my family and looking for a suitable apartment to move into, there was a freak storm that left about 10 inches of snow on the ground and the entire area ground to a complete standstill. It was amusing to me because being used to storms like that in Vermont, it didn't faze me at all, but I had to get something at the only Drug Store that was open and had miles of 4 lane highways all to myself. Snow covered, but passable if you were used to driving in snow. Then a few months later on my way to my new place in the Raleigh area from Vermont the day before I arrived at my new home a tornado tore through about a mile from my apartment. That I had missed but the path was so evident with a path of trees uprooted, vehicles crushed by falling trees. In one case the side porch was ripped off a house but no other damage to the house was evident. That was impressive. Then there was that earthquake mentioned above and finally the panic from the forecast of Hurricane Sandy came about in the fall.
I was so amazed at the impending hurricane reaction. I saw people with over three cartloads of bottled water coming out like a train from Costco. I went there to get a box set of two electric lanterns because my lack of hurricane knowledge led me to think that unless my building gets blown down the first thing that was going to happen was loss of electricity. What I did for water was filled up ten one gallon freezer bags with tap water and fit them in a couple of cardboard boxes. Unless the local water towers were blown over, water was one of the last things we were likely to lose. I had a little laundry room (the smallest in the apartment) to store them in and waited for the arrival of he big wind. Not that I really wanted to experience a full hurricane, I couldn't help but be unimpressed when in spite of a lot of damage to the outer banks there wasn't enough wind in Raleigh to blow out a match. Vermont actually got more damage from Sandy as a tropical storm then inland NC did when it was an all out hurricane.
It's amazing how I got to experience so much nature in the first year of living in my new home. All of the concern was cancelled out by the fact that I could play golf during every month of the year. Even that big snow storm was melted away within two days. We have had a couple more hurricane warnings since Sandy, but luckily didn't do much more than give us a lot of rain and slightly stronger winds.
Last edited:
