Looking Out My BackDoor - Shake, rattle and roll

That was some rattle-my-bones earthquake!

When the shocks reached me, I was sitting at my computer, working on my Spanish. Immediately my chair became a rocking chair. Instantly I knew it was a quake.

I could see the light fixtures swaying over my stove and sink. The twenty-litre bottle of drinking water threatened to jump from the ceramic holding jar. My mind erased everything I had learned about quake safety.

All I knew for sure was that I wanted to be outside in the open area, not in a brick house beneath a tile roof. I couldn’t move. I could not rise from the chair and I tried.

I was not p...