Whole Lotta Shakin'...just not here

I'd been meaning to write a book review (and had even started it) but a friend's email sent me in a complete other direction. She'd sent me a story from our local news source about a smaller (3.5) earthquake that just hit Nebraska. It touched on Southwest Iowa and the shaking was only for a couple seconds. But still, it was an earthquake!!

The comments on the news site are all worried. After all, we do live on the New Madrid Fault, one of the largest ones in the country. The fact that it hasn't done any serious moving or shaking since 1812 doesn't seem to reassure people. The comments (nothing good ever comes from reading the comments-PVP), all seem to say that this will be the end of the world. I have to admit that my first response to the story was not fear. It was excitement. If Nebraska can have an earthquake, we can. And I've always wondered what it feels like.

Now I'm not inviting quakes on the same size as the 1812 one. Those (there were four within a three month stretch of time) rang church bells in Boston and Washington DC. All of them were over 8.0 on the richter scale. Those could easily destroy sections of the city. Although we don't have a ton of skyscrapers, our builders aren't really built for earthquakes. But I wouldn't mind feeling a bit of a 3.5 quake. I'm just curious what it would be like. I've done a ton of reading about quakes and other natural disasters and always wonder what they are actually like. So perhaps we'll eventually feel a small one. Something like what my in-laws informed me hit St. Louis. A bit of shaking in the middle of the night to wake everyone up. Heck if Nebraska gets one, shouldn't we?