So now that I've finished my Greece posts, I can write about how mad we have obviously made Mother Nature. She is NOT happy with us. Tuesday, Aug 23, I'm at work typing on my computer. Just finished lunch so I'm totally relaxed. All of a sudden I feel a rumbling under me. My first thought "there goes a metro train!". Then I realize, there are NO metro trains running under this building (that was our previous building). About 15 seconds later, another rumbling. Longer and stronger this time. Now I think, there must be construction going on somewhere in the building. 20 seconds later, the building starts swaying. That's when I finally think "Earthquake!". Confirmed by hearing co-workers coming out of their offices and saying we should leave the building. The swaying stops then but, of course, since we have no idea if it will start again, most of us leave the building and meet at our usual emergency situation meeting place. From there it's clear that we have no idea what to do. We are not equipped to deal with earthquakes in this area. Cell phone lines are jammed up. Luckily, facebook is still working so that's when we find out the details. A 5.9 earthquake hit Mineral, VA (about 80 miles from DC). About 15 minutes later, we find out from that our building has been checked and it's ok to go back in. However, quite a few people are freaked out enough that they head straight home. I call home and luckily, Teresa answers right away. She said she just hugged the kids and everything was ok. The Federal Govt then shuts down at 3pm. So there's major traffic congestion getting out of the city. I'm able to reach Mario around 4:30pm. He was driving at the time of the earthquake and thought the rumbling was caused by the big truck next to him. But he's ok so I'm relived. Am able to check in with my brother and sister too. I considered going home then but looked outside and saw cars just sitting on the road so I decide to stay at work till 6pm. Good thing because, by then, traffic has cleared up and it only takes me 40 minutes to get home.
A few aftershocks during the next few days but we have to put aside the earthquake because on Wednesday, we hear Hurricane Irene is headed towards the east coast. Thursday morning, the North Carolina beaches are evacuated. Friday, they evacuate Virginia Beach and Ocean City. They expect it to hit our area Saturday night into Sunday. We're told to expect major power outages, flooding and high winds. It starts raining around 11am on Saturday but the heavy rains and high winds start around 10pm. And I woke up around 1am because the winds and rain were so strong. I stayed up staring at our window till about 4am. We have a big tree in our backyard and I was just waiting for it to fall on our house. Luckily that didn't happen! We lost power around 2:30 am but by the time we got up around 6am, the power was back on. The As lost power though so we invited them over to eat and sleep over. Pa lost power too but we weren't able to get in touch with him since their phone was acting up. Luckily, it was a beautiful, sunny Sunday and we planned on having BBQ for dinner. Because 5 minutes before the As got to our house, we lost power. We figure Pepco must've been working on a line nearby and that's what affected it. But so frustrating losing power AFTER the storm when it's sunny and gorgeous out. Felt bad because they As brought their meat from their freezer to store in our fridge so they just kept it in their cooler. Good thing is that power came back on 2 hours later. Then we lost it again an hour later for about an hour. Then it came back on for good. The As got their power back around 10:30 (got a text from their neighbor) but since it was late and the boys had to go to bed, they did spend the night.
Had one week of gorgeous weather after that.
Then, the rain came on Monday night, Sept 5. It's Sept 9 and it hasn't stopped yet. Forecast to keep raining through at least Sunday. So now we're dealing with streets flooding. Fairfax County schools actually closed today because so many streets there are flooded.
So we've obviously made Mother Nature angry. I'm scared to think what this might mean for the winter we have coming up!
No comments:
Post a Comment