... okay, that was weird.

[eruthros]

I was just sitting here when I suddenly felt something that felt an awful lot like an earthquake. It wasn't a truck going by, it was an actual earthquake.

So, knowing how poorly made my house is, I went and stood in a doorframe for a while, looking quizically at the bookshelves that were rolling a little. Because it was long for an earthquake.

And it took a while for it to show up on the USGS page -- I guess that's what happens when you have an earthquake in New York -- but yes, it was indeed a 5.5 earthquake 60 km from Ontario.

So! My very first earthquake outside of California or Nevada! It's extremely weird to be standing in a doorframe in New York wondering if anything is going to fall off a shelf. (By the time it got here, it was a pretty mild rolling on the scale of earthquakes-I've-stood-in-a-doorframe-for, but I understand it had more side-to-sideness up in Ontario.)

Comments

[egret]

I thought maybe I was just *really* dizzy until I saw the water splashing around in the glass on the table.
In my limited experience, earthquakes always seem really long and creepy even when it is just a few seconds of tremor.

[eruthros]

Yes! It didn't seem quite earthquakey at first.

I don't know how long it was, but it felt longer than average to me, because I had time to go "huh, the house is shaking" "actually it's shaking a lot, probably not a truck" "maybe I should get up in case it's an earthquake" "yeah, I'll go stand in the door" (I am not actually very good at responding to earthquakes despite having felt a bunch of them) and then I had time to stand in the doorframe for a while watching the mirrors and furniture wobble :) The internet says 20-30 seconds, which seems long to me -- the 1989 Loma Prieta one was only 15 seconds long, and I barely made it to the door.