Dan's+Story

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It was 6:00 am and i was awoken by what i thought was my mom shaking me awake, but then i realized it was Saturday. Suddenly the light hanging above my bed fell, and i rolled out of the way just in time. i ran through the hallways as picture fell off the walls and i heard glass breaking. I yelled to wake up the rest of my family but i knew they couldn't sleep through this. then the 55inch flat screen TV fell off the wall and broke into 10 pieces! The earthquake only lasted a few seconds and once it was over we got our old TV out and turned on the news. it turns out that we were only a few miles from the epicenter and the focus was almost right below us! The earthquake was a 5 on the Richter scale and it was a 4 on the Mercalli scale. Just than an after shock hit us and the ground shook once more! we decided that it was not safe here so we went to go to the shelter at the Blanchard middle school. we went out side to the car but we found that the car was crushed by a branch! so my dad got out his chainsaw and freed the car. the only thing broken was the windshield. On the car radio we heard that the earthquakes epicenter was at a normal fault. The fault was 10 miles from my house! When we got to the shelter they told us that they were full so we had to go someplace else. We got into some trouble when we were driving and due to liquefaction on the road the truck began to sink! than god my dad floored it and shoved it in to 4-wheel drive. we finely made it to the other school and they still had room. we stayed at the shelter overnight until we knew it was safe from aftershocks. We found out later that out house was a base isolated building so we didn't receive all the force of the earthquake. as we drove through town the destruction was horrific, there were trees across the roads and building destroyed, some of the water pipes underground burst and it flooded the street with water. There was also liquefaction on the ground due to the soft soil. The buildings that were still standing were damaged badly and most couldn't be repaired. There were only 2 deaths but many people were injured, the only REAL danger from earthquakes is not the earthquake itself but it is things falling such as buildings or trees. Another major risk cause by earthquakes are Tsunamis, a tsunami is a huge wave that is caused by an underwater earthquake. when we arrived home all we could hear in the distance was sirens and car alarms. About a year later everything was almost back to normal except some of the buildings were torn down. That is **//my//** earthquake story told by me.======