This morning just after five-thirty (about 5:37) I happened to be partially awake due to the fact that a fire truck (I believe) had just driven right by my apartment building. I was lying there with my back to the door when suddenly I had the sensation that someone was pressing in through the door or something. That didn’t make sense and then I wondered if something was shifting or falling from my desk, but it wasn’t. Then I felt like the wind or something was pressing against the outside of the apartment, but I realized wind couldn’t actually move the building, as was now happening. Fire flashed through my head, probably because I had just heard a fire truck close by, but that didn’t make much sense either. For a split second I wondered if the building was collapsing, but then it occurred to me: this must be an earthquake, however uncommon it is for Indiana. (I think there have been two other times in my life when there were weak earthquakes in IN, but I never felt them, so this was a first for me.)
For a moment I wondered if I should try moving somewhere safer, and where that would even be, but it was about over by that point. I’m naturally glad it wasn’t any worse. If it had been worse, I would have had things falling all over the place—I’m not very earthquake ready. And if the building had collapsed, I’d be stuck under two and a half stories debris. I didn’t really have time and it didn’t occur to me until afterwards to be a little bit shaken. It’s a bit disconcerting to have things which you are used to being very stable and solid suddenly start moving on you.
