David's+Story

Late one Friday night we felt a small vibration on the floor and we thought that it may have been a big truck, but no it was a foreshock from an earthquake that was upcoming. I figured that possibly a small earthquake was coming and no one believed me but, they were wrong. The epicenter was centered in Somerville, ma. The earthquake triggered a tsunami and uplifted our house like a leaf. The magnitude was 8.7. The earthquake was triggered off of an unknown fault. All of a sudden a hard shaking occurred it was the p waves. Then about 4 seconds later a different shaking occurred it was the s waves they knocked us down. Then maybe 6 seconds later a new sensation occurred it was the surface waves. They ripped through the ground at an amazing speed that you could barely see them go by. The surface waves destroyed my entire street and knocked over street posts as they smashed to the ground. If they didn’t fall down the lights would smash and blow up. We survived the night and turned an on the news the mercalli rating was VII. We decided to leave the area while it was being cleaned and before we hit traffic, but we were too late the highway was flooded with cars and water about a foot tall. Then all of a sudden another shaking occurred less but still powerful. Everyone scrambled around on the highway as it was filled with shrieks. We got in the car and gunned it and went on the roof of the nearest tall building. We watched as cars drifted away and people ran for shelter. ==== It turned out that the building we were on was a hotel and had power. The manager also said that the building was also a base isolated building, which means that the building was built on springs to reduce the shaking of the earthquake on the building. We stayed there for awhile and 2 days later cable and power came back and a couple weeks later we started to rebuild our house and within a couple of months everything was back to normal. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggg. Uh oh! ====