Tuesday, August 23, 2011

My first real earthquake...and a lesson learned, too...

Well, I survived my first real earthquake. I can remember three very minor tremors in years past, the latest was last year, that were more of a novelty than anything else.

This one was shaking! I was at a 7-11, sitting in a vehicle and I thought one of the motor mounts broke and something was wrong and then as soon as I had that thought, it got quite a bit stronger. So, this was around 1:45 - 1:50 P.M. EST. It was first recorded as a 5.8 and then they reported 6.1 and it has apparently settled into the 5.9 range.

Man, people were everywhere!

What lesson learned?

Verizon Wireless was down for the count in less than two minutes, yes, 120 seconds and I tried to call my wife at work, my son at home and two different friends and a client as well, "Call failed, please try again." I think out of a dozen tries I got through once and that was to my son, at home on a landline.

If there is a real disaster, wireless phones are not going to be much good at all. Better look into three GMRS Radios, home, work, mobile.

2 comments:

Blackthorn D. Stick said...

Don,

Glad you and your family are OK. I was at work, and didn't feel jack-s&5t in the part of the building I was in. when I got back to my desk everyone was going "did you feel that".
I tried to call my wife who is currently out of town visiting her dad. It took 5 or 6 failed tries until I got through on the cell. I'm guessing that since all we got up here in the Peoples Not So Democratic City of New York was essentially a tremor, the cell system probably got overwhelmed by everyone trying to call their family and friends all at once.
Now they're saying that Hurricane Irene is going to make landfall as a Cat. 4 storm.

Hmmm.... What's that old chinese curse about living in interesting times?.....

Take care of yourself Buddy!

Don said...

J,

It looks like Irene might be more of an event for you than me. I hope we get some good wind out of it! Last one we had was about six years or so ago, Isabelle, she was an "I!" 8-)

Of course, Irene is big enough that we will probably get something out of it even if we don't get slammed.

I have the Grundig crank radio, plenty of food and the rest of it. We will be fine unless Irene stalls and floods like Agnes did back in 1971 or 1972. I can barely remember any of it, I remember my mother being freaked out about a thunderstorm. Hahaha!

Don