I was on campus.
You see, I’ve been freelancing at my old job from college since we moved to Maryland two and a half weeks ago. So, when the earthquake hit, I was sitting alone in an office on the top floor of Bunting Hall at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.
In college, it was not uncommon to hear testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is located across the Chesapeake Bay. My first thought, as the shaking started, was that it must be something over there. As it got worse, I was worried that the construction in front of the building had gone horribly wrong. Only near the end of the earthquake, as the bookcase in the corner rattled and the plastic of the copier down the hall creaked did I think, “This is an earthquake,” and move to the doorway of the office.
Reports say the earthquake was only twenty seconds. It felt much longer.
Other confused faces poked their faces into the hall from their doorways. We looked at each other in bewilderment. The consensus seemed to be to go outside, so I followed. I tried to text Dan, but it didn’t go through right away. Eventually he got back to me and said, “You had a tremor too?” It turned out that 50 miles away, he’d been evacuated from his building as well.
Thankfully, it was a beautiful day to stand outside for 45 minutes. The College decided to send nonessential staff home. I listened to CNN and other news stations on satellite radio as I drove an hour back to our apartment and tried to wrap my head around what happened.
I still don’t think I completely understand.
Now it’s time to prepare for a hurricane. These things seem so alien to write about as a Pennsylvanian/Marylander.