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We had an earthquake this morning around 4:36am. The epicenter was apparently in West Salem, IL, but we got the effects, and also experienced some aftershocks around 10:14am. Initially they gave it a 5.4, but it was downgraded to a 5.2 later in the day.

I don't know that I would have woken up had it not been for Andy repeatedly saying, "It's an earthquake..." with increasing intensity. It felt to me like the sleeper car I rode between Italy and France during my post-graduation Europe trip in 1995 with my friend, Betsy. Calming, peaceful... I was happily rocking more deeply into sleep having been awokened several times already by a restless Ariana.

Apparently, we did not do what FEMA recommends for such a disaster. We did not stay in the bed, we did not lie down on the floor and cover ourselves. We did not hold on to anything. Thinking back into the haze of my half-wakefulness, I imagine we were somewhat panicky as we tried to assess how severe it was while checking on Ariana and trying to decide if we should wake her or not... meanwhile scrambling through our rusty and tired brains for some scrap of remembered information about what to do during an earthquake.

(It is not to stand in a doorway on the 2nd floor looking at your daughter in her crib, as I did, nor to go down to the 1st floor to watch the news and then to the basement to check on the already-cracked structural beam with a temporary fix fashioned with MacGyver-like brilliance and utility, as Andy did. Just FYI.)

What does 5.2 on the Richter scale feel like? I thought it felt like a train... my friend Dean thought it felt like dogs jumping around on his bed; my friend Becky Chambers thought it felt like a tornado (shaking and very strong train sound); Andy thought it felt like me jiggling my foot really vigorously under the covers. When you are standing up, and not in bed, it feels reminiscent of a very large truck lumbering down the road, making the whole house bounce around a bit (which is exactly how my sister-in-law, Nikki, described her own experience).

Luckily, as of nearly 12 hours later, there are still no injuries or deaths. Some damage and a lot of surprised and slightly rattled Midwesterners, but it could have been much, much worse. I am very grateful it is more of an anedote than a tragedy, and I hope the predictions of impending disaster from future quakes in this area are all for naught.